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HISTORY OF 
THE MODERN 
WORLD 


BY 

HUTTON WEBSTER, Ph.D. 

ji 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA 
AUTHOR OF “ ANCIENT HISTORY,” “ MEDIEVAL AND 
MODERN HISTORY,” “EARLY EUROPEAN 
HISTORY,” “ MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY,” 

“ WORLD HISTORY,” ETC. 


“The growth of nations, the achievements of men of 
action, the rise and fall of parties remain among the most 
engrossing themes of the historian; but he now casts his 
net wider and embraces the whole record of civilization. 
The influence of nature, the pressure of economic factors, 
the origin and transformation of ideas, the contribution of 
science and art, religion and philosophy, literature and law, 
the material conditions of life, the fortunes of the masses — 
such problems now claim his attention in no less degree.” 
— G. P. Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth 
Century. 



D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

ATLANTA DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO LONDON 


tv\ 










COPYRIGHT, I 92 O AND 1 925 
BY D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 

2 G 5 

X 


•f r 

1- . 


PRINTED IN U.S.A. 

SEP -4 1925 

©Cl A 864 4:60 

OMJ / 


PREFACE 


My Modern European History, published in 1920 (revised 
edition, 1925 ), was intended as a textbook for the second year 
of a two-year historical course. It has also found use as the 
basis of a one-year course, where the emphasis is placed on recent 
times and contemporary problems. When so used as a general 
or universal history, it seems to require something by way of 
introduction, lest students be plunged abruptly into the seven¬ 
teenth century, with which the book begins. I have tried to 
provide such an introduction in four chapters, outlining the 
growth of civilization from the earliest times. The revised 
edition of the Modern European History, as enlarged by the 
addition of these preliminary chapters, constitutes the work now 
offered to teachers and pupils in the high schools. 

The selection of collateral reading, always a difficult problem 
in the secondary school, is doubly difficult when so much ground 
must be covered in a single course. I venture, therefore, to 
call attention to my Readings in Ancient History and Readings 
in Medieval and Modern History. They consist of extracts from 
the sources, chiefly of a biographical or narrative character. 
Their purpose is to provide immature students with a variety of 
extended, unified, and interesting extracts on matters which a 
textbook treats with necessary, though none the less deplorable, 
condensation. A third work — Historical Source Book — in¬ 
cludes a number of documents ranging from Magna Carta to 
the Covenant of the League of Nations. These collections 
supply abundant material, not only for outside reading, but 
also for oral reports in class and for essays. References to the 
three volumes are inserted in footnotes. 

This book, like its predecessors, contains a variety of aids. 
The “Suggestions for Further Study” provide extended bibli- 


IV 


Preface 


ographies. The “Studies” at the end of each chapter may be 
used either in the daily recitation or for review after the entire 
chapter has been read. The “Table of Events and Dates,” 
forming the appendix, should be consulted frequently, and 
pupils should be required to explain and elaborate the brief 
statements there given concerning the significance of each dated 
event. Care ought also to be taken that pupils acquire a cor¬ 
rect pronunciation of all proper names mentioned in the text 
and incorporated in the index and pronouncing vocabulary. 

Hutton Webster 

Lincoln, Nebraska 
June , 1925. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

List of Illustrations .xii 

List of Maps .. . . xvi 

List of Plates .xx 

Suggestions for Further Study .xxii 

CHAPTER 

I. The Beginnings of History 

1. History and Prehistory.1 

2. The Dawn of Civilization ...... 5 

3. Races and Languages ...... 8 

4. Lands and Peoples of the East.10 

5. The Far East in Antiquity.12 

6. The Near East in Antiquity.17 

II. Ancient Times in Europe 

7. Lands and Peoples of the West ..... 25 

8. The Greeks.29 

9. Athens.35 

10. The Graeco-Oriental World.41 

11. The Romans.46 

12. The Gneco-Oriental-Roman World .... 52 

13. The Decline of the Roman Empire . . . .57 

14. Christianity and Its Influence ..... 60 

15. The German Invasions and Their Results ... 64 

III. Medieval Times in Europe 

16. The Early Middle Ages.69 

17. Feudalism.75 

18. The Church.80 

19. Country Life.86 

20. City Life.91 

21. National States.101 

22. The Culture of the Later Middle Ages . . . 106 

IV. The Transition to the Modern World 

23. The Revival of Learning and Art . . . .114 

24. The Revival of Science and Invention . . . 119 


v 






















VI 


Contents 


CHAPTER 


V. 


v/ VI. 


VII. 


VIII. 


PAGE 


25. 

Geographical Discovery. 

123 

26. 

Colonial Empires. 

130 

27. 

Europe and America. 

133 

28. 

Reformation and Counter Reformation 

135 

29. 

The Wars of Religion. 

144 

30. 

European Politics. 

150 

Constitutional Monarchy in England, 1603-1714 


31. 

Absolutism of the Stuarts, 1603-1642 

154 

32. 

Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution, 1642-1649 

160 

33. 

The Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649- 



1660 . 

165 

34. 

The Restoration and the “Glorious Revolution,” 



1660-1689 . 

168 

35. 

William III and Anne, 1689-1714 .... 

172 

36. 

England during the Seventeenth Century . 

174 

Absolute Monarchy in France, 1610-1715 


37. 

Absolutism of Louis XIV ...... 

179 

38. 

The Wars of Louis XIV. 

183 

39. 

War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-1713 

186 

40. 

France during the Seventeenth Century 

189 

The European Balance of Power, 1715-1789 


41. 

Statecraft and Diplomacy ...... 

194 

42. 

Rise of Russia ........ 

195 

v 43. 

Russia under Peter the Great, 1689-1725 . 

198 

44. 

Sweden. 

202 

45. 

Russia under Catherine II, 1762-1796; the Decline 



of Turkey. 

205 

46. 

Austria and Maria Theresa ..... 

207 

47. 

The Rise of Prussia ....... 

209 

48. 

Prussia under Frederick the Great, 1740-1786 . 

212 

49. 

Poland . . . . . . . ... 

215 

50. 

Great Britain and George III. 

221 

Commerce and Colonies during the Seventeenth and 
Eighteenth Centuries 


51. 

Mercantilism and Trading Companies 

226 

52. 

The Dutch Colonial Empire. 

228 

53. 

Rivalry of France and England in India (to 1763) 

231 

54. 

Virginia and Massachusetts . . 

235 

55. 

The Thirteen Colonies. 

242 

56. 

Transit of Civilization from England to America 

246 







CHAPTER 


IX. 


X. 


XI. 


XII. 


Contents 


57. Economic Development of the Colonies 

58. Political Development of the Colonies 

59. Canada and Louisiana. 

60. Rivalry of France and England in North America 

(to 1763). 

61. The American Revolution, 1776-1783 

62. Formation of the United States . 

63. Progress of Geographical Discovery . 

The Old Regime in Europe 

64. Reform. 

65. The Privileged Classes. 

66. The Unprivileged Classes. 

67. The Church. 

68. Liberal Ideas of Industry and Commerce; the 

Economists. 

69. Liberal Ideas of Religion and Politics; the English 

Philosophers.. 

70. The French Philosophers ...... 

71. The Enlightened Despots. 

The French Revolution, 1789-1799 

72. Preparation for the French Revolution 

73. Eve of the French Revolution. 

74. The Estates-General, 1789 . 

75. Outbreak of the French Revolution .... 

76. The National Assembly, 1789-1791 .... 

77. The First French Republic, 1792 .... 

78. The National Convention, 1792-1795 

79. The Directory, 1795-1799 . 

80. The Revolutionary Era. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 1799-1815 

81. The Consulate, 1799-1804 .. 

82. The First French Empire, 1804 .... 

83. Napoleon at War with Europe, 1805-1807 

84. Napoleon’s Reorganization of. Europe 

85. The Continental System. 

86. Revolt of the Nations, 1808-1814 .... 

87. Downfall of Napoleon, 1814-1815 .... 

88. The Napoleonic Era. 

Reconstruction and Reaction, 1815-1830 

89. The Congress of Vienna. 

90. Restoration of the Dynasties. 


vii 

PAGE 

249 

253 

256 

259 

263 

270 

272 


276 

277 
280 
282 

284 

286 

288 

292 


296 

298 

301 

304 

309 

312 

317 

322 

326 


329 

334 

335 
338 

340 

341 
347 
349 


352 

353 







Contents 


viii 

CHAPTER 


XIII. 


XIV. 


XV. 


XVI. 


XVII. 


91. Territorial Readjustments. 

92. “Metternichismus”. 

93. The Concert of Europe. 

The Democratic Movement in Europe, 1830-1848 

94. Modern Democracy . . 

95. France and the “July Revolution,” 1830 . 

96. The “July Revolution” in Europe . 

97. The “February Revolution” and the Second French 

Republic, 1848 . 

98. The “February Revolution” in Austria and Italy ,. 

99. The “February Revolution” in Germany 

The National Movement in Europe, 1848-1871 

100. Modern Nationalism . . . . 

101. Napoleon III and the Second French Empire, 1852 . 

102. France under Napoleon III, 1852-1870 . 

103. Disunited Italy ....... 

104. Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour . . • . 

105. United Italy, 1859-1870 . 

106. Disunited Germany ...... 

107. William I and Bismarck. 

108. United Germany, 1864-1871 . 

The United Kingdom and the British Empire 

109. Great Britain. 

110. Parliamentary Reform, 1832 . 

111. Political Democracy, 1832-1867 .... 

112. Political Democracy, 1867-1918 .... 

113. Government of the United Kingdom 

114. Ireland and the Irish Question .... 

115. Extension of the British Empire . , . . 

116. Organization of the British Empire .... 

117. Imperial Federation ...... 

The Third French Republic 

118. ' Land and People of France. 

119. Republican France, 1871-1914 .... 

120. Government of France ...... 

121. Colonial Expansion of France ..... 

Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries op Western 
Europe 

122. Italy . 

123. Spain. 


PAGE 

355 

358 

361 


366 

369 

371 

378 

380 

384 


387 

389 

392 

394 

398 

400 

404 

408 

411 


418 

421 

425 

429 

431 

437 

443 

444 
448 


452 

455 

460 

463 


466 

470 












Contents 


ix 

CHAPTER p AGE 

124. Portugal.473 

125. Switzerland.474 

126. Belgium.476 

127. Holland .. 478 

128. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden .... 479 

XVIII. The German Empire and the Dual Monarchy 

129. Land and People of Germany.482 

130. The German Constitution.484 

131. Imperial Germany, 1871-1914 . 488 

132. Colonial Expansion of Germany .... 492 

133. Constitution of Austria-Hungary .... 493 

134. Nationalities in Austria-Hungary .... 496 

XIX. Russia 

135. The Russians.500 

136. The Non-Russians.501 

J 137. Alexander I, 1801-1825 504 

138. Nicholas I, 1825-1855 506 

139. Alexander II, 1855-1881 . 508 

140. Alexander III, 1881-1894 511 

141. Nicholas II, 1894-1914 513 

XX. Turkey and the Balkan States 

142. The Balkan Peoples.516 

143. The Ottoman Turks . . . . . 518 

144. Montenegro and Serbia . . . . . .519 

145. Greece.521 

146. The Crimean War, 1854-1856, and Treaty of Paris . 523 

147. Rumania.526 

148. Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878, and Treaty of Berlin 527 

149. Bulgaria.528 

150. Balkan Wars, 1912-1913, and Treaty of Bukharest . 529 

XXI. Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

151. Greater Europe.532 

152. Imperialism.533 

153. The Opening-up of Africa.535 

154. The Partition of Africa.538 

155. The Opening-up and Partition of Asia . . .547 

156. India . . . . . . . . 550 

157. China.555 

158. Japan.559 

159. The Opening-up and Partition of Oceania . .563 























X 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

160. Australia and New Zealand.566 

161. Inter-Racial Problems ..568 

XXII. Expansion of Europe in the New World 

162. South America.572 

163. Central America and Mexico . . . .578 

164. The West Indies.580 

165. The United States.581 

166. Canada.585 

167. Close of Geographical Discovery . . . .588 

XXIII. The Industrial Revolution 

168. Nature of the Industrial Revolution . . . 592 

169. The Great Inventions.594 

170. Effects of the Great Inventions .... 601 

171. Improvements in Transportation .... 605 

172. Improved Communications.611 

173. Modern Industrialism ...... 615 

XXIV. Economic and Social Progress 

174. Commerce.619 

175. Commercial Organization . . . . .621 

176. Commercial Policies ...... 625 

177. Agriculture and Land Tenure .... 629 

178. The Labor Movement.634 

179. Government Regulation of Industry . . .636 

180. Public Ownership.641 

181. Socialism.643 

182. Poverty and Progress ...... 648 

XXV. Modern Civilization 

183. Internationalism.652 

184. Social Betterment.654 

185. Emancipation of Women and Children . . . 660 

186. Popular Education and the Higher Learning . 663 

187. Religious Development ..... 665 

188. Science.670 

189. Philosophy and Literature.675 

190. Music and the Fine Arts.678 

191. Historic and Artistic Paris.681 

192. Historic and Artistic London .... 690 

XXVI. International Relations, 1871-1914 

193. The Triple Alliance.700 

194. The Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente . . 703 














Contents 


xi 


CHAPTER PAGE 

195. Colonial Problems.707 

196. The Eastern Question.709 

197. Militarism.713 

198. Pan-Germanism.717 

XXVII. The World War, 1914-1918 

199. Beginning of the War, 1914.721 

200. The Western Front.729 

201. The Eastern Front.735 

202. The Balkan and Italian Fronts . . . .736 

203. The War outside of Europe and on the Sea, 1914- 

1917.741 

204. Intervention of the United States . . . 744 

205. The Russian Revolution.750 

206. War Aims of the Allies . . . . .753 

207. End of the War, 1918.756 

XXVIII. The World Settlement, 1919-1920 

208. The Peace Conference.763 

209. Peace with Germany.768 

210. Peace with Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria . . 772 

211. Peace with Turkey.774 

212. The New Nations in Central and Eastern Europe . 777 

213. Socialist Germany.782 

214. Soviet Russia.784 

215. Contemporary European Politics . . . .788 

XXIX. The World To-day 

216. The Cost of the World War.795 

217. Lessons of the World War.801 

218. The Peace Movement.803 

219. International Organization.806 

220. The League of Nations.809 

221. The World Court and the Geneva Protocol . . 812 

222. Disarmament.817 

223. Contemporary International Politics . . . 819 

Appendix — Table of Events and Dates.829 

Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary.835 







LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Deposits in a Swiss Cave. 3 

A Mammoth. 4 

Head of a Girl. 5 

Neolithic Ships. 5 

Chinese Picture Writing and 
Later Conventional Charac- • 

ters. 14 

The Great Wall of China. 15 

Hindu Conception of the Earth 16 

Assyrian Soldiers. 18 

Tax Collecting in Ancient 

Egypt. 19 

Characters of the Alphabet.. . 20 

Egyptian Royal Diadem. 22 

A Babylonian Demon. 23 

A Cretan Woman. 31 

An Athenian Trireme. 32 

Plan of the Parthenon. 38 

Order of Greek Architecture. . 39 

Socrates and Plato. 40 

Alexander the Great. 42 

Lighthouse of Alexandria (Re¬ 
stored) . 45 

Early Roman Bar Money.... 49 

Youth Reading a Papyrus Roll 54 

Latin Inscription. 55 

Terra-Cotta Savings Bank_ 59 

Romans Destroying a German 

Village. 65 

Charlemagne. 71 

Champions Fighting. 79 

Mounted Knight. 80 

A Monk Copyist. 84 

Sulgrave Manor House. 87 

Plan of a Manor. .. 89 

Serf Warming his Hands. 90 


PAGE 


Carcassonne.i. 92 

A Fair in the Fifteenth Cen¬ 
tury. 97 

Florentine Bankers Settling 

Accounts. 100 

Great Seal of Henry II (Ob¬ 
verse).... 102 

Deathbed of a King. 105 

Plan of Salisbury Cathedral, 

England. 108 

Master, Usher, and Boys..... 109 

A University Lecture. 110 

A Ballad Singer. 112 

Shakespeare’s Signature. 117 

A Fifteenth Century Organ... 118 

Galileo’s Telescopes. 120 

An Alchemist in his Labora¬ 
tory . 121 

An Early Printing Press. 122 

The Unicorn. 124 

The Santa Maria , Flagship 

of Columbus. 129 

Zwingli. 139 

The Spanish Armada in the 

English Channel. 147 

Gold Coin of James 1. 155 

A Puritan Family. 156 

London Tradesmen. 157 

John Hampden. 158 

Execution of the Earl of 

Strafford.. 159 

Interior of Westminster Hall. 163 

Great Seal of England under 

the Commonwealth. 167 

Silver Crown of Charles II. . . 168 

The Triumph of William III.. 171 

xu 
















































List of Illustrations 


PAGE 


A London Bellman. 175 

Coach and Sedan Chair. 175 

Death Mask of Sir Isaac New¬ 
ton. 176 

John Milton. 177 

Specimen of Cromwell’s Hand¬ 
writing. 178 

Cardinal Richelieu. 179 

Cardinal Mazarin. 180 

Versailles. 181 

Marlborough. 187 

Gibraltar. 188 

Jean-Baptiste Colbert. 190 

Medal of Louis XIV. 191 

Moliere. 192 

Cradle of Charles XII. 202 

Catherine II. 205 

Maria Theresa. 209 

Frederick the Great. 213 

The Partition of Poland. 217 

Tadeusz Kosciusko. 219 

A Politician. 222 

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 223 

George III. 224 

Frederick, Lord North. 225 

New Amsterdam in 1655. 230 

A Mogul Emperor. 234 

Ruins of the Brick Church at 

Jamestown. 237 

The Mayflower . 239 

The Mayflower Compact..... 240 

First Page of Penn’s Account of 

Pennsylvania . 243 

A Title-page of Poor Richard’s 

Almanac . 246 

A Page from the New England 

Primer . 247 

Harvard College in the Eight¬ 
eenth Century. 248 

A Redemptioner’s Indenture.. 251 

New York Colonial Paper 

Money. 252 

Benjamin Franklin. 254 


xiii 


PAGE 

“Join or Die”. 255 

Montcalm. 260 

James Wolfe. 262 

Quebec. 263 

A Stamp of 1765.. 265 

Opening Lines of the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence. 266 

The “Liberty Bell”. 267 

Signatures of the Treaty of 

Paris, 1783. 269 

The Discovery . 273 

“Ridiculous Taste, or the 

Ladies’ Absurdity”. 279 

John Wesley. 283 

Adam Smith. 286 

Montesquieu. 289 

Voltaire. 290 

Jean Jacques Rousseau. 291 

Joseph II. 293 

Canvassing for Votes. 295 

The French Peasant under 
Taille, Tax, and Corvee. ... 299 

Turgot. 300 

Costumes of the Orders. 301 

Mirabeau. 302 

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes. 303 

Storming the Bastille. 305 

Soldier of the National Guard. 306 

The Destruction of Feudalism 307 

The Louvre and the Tuileries. 308 

An Assignat. 310 

Danton. 314 

Robespierre. .. 315 

The Lion of Lucerne. 316 

Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, 

and the Dauphin. 318 

Execution of Louis XVT. 319 

Lazare Carnot. 320 

Napoleon’s Birthplace, Ajaccio 323 

Horatio, Lord Nelson. 325 

Seal of the French Republic. . 327 

A French Dragoon. 328 

Napoleon’s Mother. 330 


































































XIV 


List of Illustrations 


PAGE 

La Madeleine. 333 

Cross of the Legion of Honor. 335 

A Napoleonic Medal. 336 

The Victory . 337 

The Duke of Wellington. 342 

Josephine. 343 

Baron vom Stein. 345 

Hardenberg. 346 

The Tomb of Napoleon. 350 

Talleyrand. 353 

George Canning. 354 

No. 10, Downing St. 355 

Louis Philippe. 370 

Colonne Juillet. 372 

Caricature of Louis Philippe. . 379 

Louis Kossuth. 382 

“France is Tranquil”. 391 

Napoleon III and Eugenie.... 393 

Giuseppe Mazzini. 396 

Pius IX. 397 

Victor Emmanuel if. 398 

“The Right Leg in the Boot at 

Last”. 403 

William 1. 408 

Albrecht von Roon. 409 

“Vae Victis!”. 416 

The Union Jack. 421 

Queen Victoria. 426 

Interior of the House of Com¬ 
mons . 433 

House of Commons Mace. ... 435 

Charles Stewart Parnell. 441 

The Place de la Concorde.... 454 

Colonne Vendome. 456 

Chamber of Deputies, Paris... 461 

Leo XIII. 467 

The Vatican. 468 

Francesco Crispi. 470 

The King and Queen of 

Spain. 472 

King Albert 1. 476 

Palais de Justice, Brussels. . . . 477 

The Reichstagsgebaude, Berlin 485 


PAGE 

The German National Monu¬ 


ment. 489 

Francis Joseph 1. 495 

The Kremlin, Moscow. 505 

Nicholas 1. 507 

Alexander II. 508 

Church of the Resurrection of 

Christ, Petrograd. 510 

Nicholas II. 513 

“What Nicholas Heard in the 

Shell”. 523 

.Florence Nightingale. 525 

David Livingstone. 537 

Henry M. Stanley. 538 

Paul Kruger. 541 

Lord Kitchener. 544 

Cecil Rhodes. 545 

Count Ferdinand de Lesseps.. 546 

The Potala, Lhasa. 549 

“The Lion’s Vengeance on the 

Bengal Tiger”. 552 

Empress Dowager of China... 557 

Li Hung Chang. 558 

Sign Manual and Seal of 

Mutsuhito. 561 

Buddhist Prayer Wheel. 571 

Sim6n Bolivar. 574 

Dom Pedro II. 575 

The Christ of the Andes. 577 

The Earl of Durham. 586 

Robert E. Peary. 589 

A Spinning Wheel. 595 

Hargreaves’s Spinning Jenny. 596 
Arkwright’s Spinning Machine 596 
Crompton’s Spinning Mule. . . 597 

Cartwright’s First Power 

Loom. 597 

Whitney’s Cotton Gin. 598 

Watt’s Steam-engine. 598 

An Eighteenth Century Stage 

Coach. 605 

The Great Western . 606 

The Clermont . 607 

































































List of Illustrations 


PAGE 


George Stephenson. 607 

The Rocket , 1830. 608 

A Precursor of the Automobile 609 
Morse’s First Telegraph In¬ 
strument (1837). 611 

Cyrus W. Field. 612 

The Original Atlantic Cable. . 612 

The First Phonograph (1877) 613 

First Adhesive Penny Postage 

Stamp. 613 

The First Copy of the New . 

York Sun . 614 

McCormick Reaper (1834). . . 618 

Sir Robert Peel. 625 

Richard Cobden. 626 

John Bright. 626 

The Earl of Shaftesbury. 637 

Robert Owen. 644 

Karl Marx. 646 

First Singer Sewing Machine 

(1851). 651 

Petty Offenders in the Pillory. 656 

Elizabeth Fry. 656 

A Lunatic. 657 

William Booth. 659 

Henri Dunant. 659 

Mary Lyon. 661 

Susan B. Anthony. 661 

Sir Charles Lyell. 671 

Herbert Spencer. 676 

Victor Hugo. 677 

Mozart’s Spinet. 678 

Ludwig van Beethoven. 679 

The Opera, Paris.. . .. 680 

Arc de Triomphe. . 682 

Notre Dame. 684 

Hotel des Invalides. 685 

The Pantheon. 686 


XV 


PAGE 

The Tower of London. 692 

St. Paul’s Cathedral. 694 

The Nelson Monument, 

Trafalgar Square. 695 

Westminster Abbey. 696 

The Lord Mayor’s Show in 

London. 699 

‘‘ Dropping the Pilot ”. 702 

The Marquis of Salisbury.... 704 

Edward VII. 706 

“The Blessings of Peace”. ... 716 

William II. 726 

Facsimile of Article VII of the 

Treaty of 1839. 728 

Herbert H. Asquith. 728 

“The Advance on Paris and 

Berlin”.. 731 

“Kultur Has Passed Here”.. 733 

Guild Hall, Ypres. 734 

The Grand Duke Nicholas.... 735 

Hindenburg. 736 

The Victoria Cross. 738 

The Iron Cross. 738 

Eleutherios Venizelos. 739 

The Lusitania . 745 

The German Lusitania Medal 746 

U. S. Declaration of War. 747 

“Von Pot und Von Kettle”.. 757 

Eric von Ludendorff. 758 

Raymond Poincare.. 763 

Georges Clemenceau. 765 

Signatures on the Peace Treaty 

with Germany. 767 

Powder Gate, Prague. 780 

President Ebert. 783 

Lenin. 787 

Hugo Grotius. 805 

The Peace Palace at the Hague 816 


























































LIST OF MAPS 


PAGE 


Centers of Civilization in the East.7 

The Dispersal of Mankind.9 

Distribution of the White Race in Antiquity, about 1000-500 b.c. 


Physical Map of Asia .... 


Facing 

Facing 

10 

12 

Chinese Empire under the T’ang Dynasty . 



13 

Colonization of the Mediterranean 


Facing 

18 

Physical Features of Europe 


Between 26 and 27 

Racial Types in Western Europe 


. 

28 

The Mediterranean Basin .... 



30 

The Near East and Greece .... 


Facing 

32 

Vicinity of Athens ..... 



35 

The Athenian Empire about 450 b.c. . 


Facing 

36 

Empire of Alexander the Great, 336-323 B.c. 


Facing 

42 

The Kingdoms of Alexander’s Successors . 


Facing 

42 

The World according to Ptolemy 


. 

44 

Italy before the Rise of Rome 


Facing 

46 

Vicinity of Rome ..... 



48 

The Roman Empire, 98-117 a.d. 


Between 52 and 53 

St. Paul’s Travels. 



61 

Teutonic Migrations and Conquests . 


Facing 

66 

Europe in the Age of Charlemagne, 800 a.d. 


Facing 

70 

Europe in the Age of Otto the Great, 962 a.d. 



72 

Discoveries and Settlements of the Northmen 


. 

74 

Possessions of the Count of Champagne, 12th Century 


77 

Trade Routes between Northern and Southern Europe in the 13th and 
14th Centuries . . . . . . 

99 

The British Isles during the Middle Ages . 


. 

104 

Plan of Salisbury Cathedral, England . 

. 


108 

The Peoples of Europe at the Beginning of the 

Tenth Century Facing 

110 

Asia under the Mongols . 


. Facing 

124 

Portuguese Explorations of the African Coast 



126 

Behaim’s Globe ...... 



127 

Portuguese and Spanish Colonial Empires 

in the 

16th Century 
Between 130 and 131 


xvi 











List of Maps xvii 

PAGE 

The Spaniards in the Caribbean and on the Mainland . . . 132 

Extent of the Reformation, 1524-1572 a.d.. 141 

The Peace of Westphalia, 1648 a.d.149 

Europe at the End of the Thirty Years’ War, 1648 a.d. . Facing 150 
England and Wales — The Civil Wars of the Seventeenth Century. 161 

Ireland.165 

Acquisitions of Louis XIV and Louis XV.184 

Europe after the Peace of Utrecht, 1713 a.d. . . . Facing 186 

Growth of Russia to the End of the Eighteenth Century . . . 196 

Scandinavia in the Seventeenth Century.203 

The Ottoman Empire to 1683 a.d. Facing 206 

Hapsburg Possessions, 1526-1789 a.d..208 

Growth of Prussia to End of Eighteenth Century . . Facing 214 

Poland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries .... 216 

Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795 a.d..218 

English Trading Companies ...... Facing 228 

The East Indies.229 

India in 1783 a.d..232 

Virginia.236 

Captain John Smith’s Map of New England.238 

New England in the Seventeenth Century.241 

The Middle Colonies ..242 

The Settlement of North America by the Middle of the Seventeenth 

- Century.244 

La Sally’s Explorations.257 

North America after the Peace of Utrecht, 1713 a.d.259 

North America after the Peace of Paris, 1763 a.d.261 

North America after the Peace of Paris, 1783 a.d.268 

Colonial Empires (double page). Between 272 and 273 

Europe at French Revolution, 1789 a.d. Facing 298 

Revolutionary France and Italy. Facing 322 

Napoleon’s Egyptian and Syrian Campaigns.324 

The First French Empire, 1812 a.d. Facing 338 

Napoleon’s Russian Campaign.344 

Theater of the Waterloo Campaign.348 

Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815 a.d. . . . Facing 356 

The Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century.373 

Poland in the Nineteenth Century.375 

Unification of Italy, 1815-1870 a.d.402 

The Germanic Confederation, 1815-1866 a.d. . . . Facing 406 

The Zollverein ..407 

Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein.411 

Alsace-Lorraine.415 











XV111 


List of Maps 


PAGE 

The Unification of Germany, 1815-1871 a.d. . . . Facing 416 

Physical Map of the British Isles. Facing 420 

Growth of the English Empire. Facing 442 

The British Empire (double page) .... Between 446 and 447 

Hapsburg Possessions, 1815-1914 a.d..494 

Peoples of Austria-Hungary (1914).498 

Russia in Europe during the Nineteenth Century .... 502 

Peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor . . Facing 518 

The Ottoman Empire, 1683-1914 a.d. . . . . Facing 522 

The Crimean Campaign ......... 524 

Balkan States, 1878 and 1913 a.d. Facing 528 

Constantinople ........... 529 

World Powers in 1815 a.d. Facing 532 

The Peoples of Africa ....... Facing 536 

The Religions of Africa.539 

The Exploration and Partition of Africa (double page) Between 540 and 541 

The Union of South Africa.542 

The Suez Canal.546 

The Peoples of Asia. Facing 548 

Extension of British Rule in India ....... 551 

The Peoples of India.553 

The European Advance in Asia (double page) . . Between 554 and 555 

The Great Powers in China ...... Facing 556 

Theater of the Russo-Japanese War . . . . . . .562 

The Expansion of Japan ....... Facing 562 

The World Powers (double page) .... Between 564 and 565 

The Pacific Ocean ........ Facing 566 

The Australian Commonwealth . . . . . . . .567 

The Races of Man.569 

Exclusion of Spain and Portugal from South America . Facing 574 

North America since 1783 a.d. Facing 582 

Relief Map of the Panama Canal.584 

Commercial Languages of America. Facing 588 

Discoveries in the Polar Regions.590 

Economic Europe (double page). Between 594 and 595 

Industrial England in the Twentieth Century ..... 603 

Density of the World’s Population ..... Facing 616 

The Occupations of Mankind ...... Facing 618 

Commercial Development of the World (double page) Between 622 and 623 
Inclosures in England in the Eighteenth Century .... 630 

Languages of the World. Facing 652 

Religions of the World.668 

Vicinity of Paris.688 













List of Maps xix 

PAGE 

Plan of Paris.689 

Vicinity of London.697 

Plan of London.698 

Europe in 1871 a.d . Facing 702 

Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway . .710 

Europe in 1914 a.d . Facing 720 

Plan of the Battle of the Marne.730 

The Western Front.732 

The Eastern Front.737 

The Italian Front.740 

German Barred Zone, February 1, 1917.744 

North Sea Mine Fields.749 

The W T orld War in 1918 a.d .754 

Dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . . .773 

Europe after the Peace Conference at Paris, 1919-1920 a.d. (double 

page). Between 778 and 779 

Dismemberment of the Russian Empire.785 

Governments of the World.. . . Facing 792 

The League of Nations.810 

The Partition of the Caribbean.821 

The Moslem World.825 

Expansion of Buddhism.826 























LIST OF PLATES 


A Restoration of the Parthenon . 

Queen Nefertiti ..... 
Pottery of the Aegean Age . 

Acropolis of Athens from the Southwest 
Greek Tombstone .... 

The Triumph of Constantine in the Roman 
The Antioch Chalice .... 
Campanile and Doge’s Palace, Venice 
Magdalen College and Bridge, England 
Reims Cathedral. 

Choir of Westminster Abbey 
Oliver Cromwell . 

Louis XIV . 

Peter the Great . 

Frederick the Great 
The “Tennis Court Oath” 

Napoleon as First Consul 
“1807” 

The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815 
Prince Metternich 
Napoleon III 
Cavour 
Garibaldi 
Bismarck 


Foru 


m, 312 a.d. 


Moltke . . ■ 

Gladstone .... 
Disraeli .... 

Thiers. 

Gambetta .... 

The Congress of Berlin, 1878 

Constantinople and the Bosporus 

James Watt 

Robert Fulton 

Early Passenger Trains 

Marie Curie 

Louis Pasteur 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 

Facing 

21 


30 


38 

. 

56 


57 


62 


100 


101 

. 

106 


107 


166 


182 


200 


201 


304 


330 


331 


354 


355 


392 


393 


393 


412 


412 


428 


428 


456 


456 


526 


527 


606 

. 

606 

• 

607 

. 

674 

. 

674 


xx 
















List of Plates 


xxi 


View of Paris from an Airplane 

Houses of Parliament, London 

Marshal Joffre 

Marshal Foch 

Sir Douglas Haig 

General Pershing 

The Peace Conference 

Hall of Mirrors, Versailles . 

Woodrow Wilson 

Lloyd George 


PAGE 

690 

691 
758 
758 
758 
758 

768 

769 
812 
812 











SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 


Students of history should have access to the American Historical 
Review (N. Y., 1895 to date, quarterly, $ 4.00 a year). This journal, 
the organ of the American Historical Association, p erio( j ica j s 
contains articles by scholars, critical reviews of all 
important works, and notes and news. The Historical Outlook is 
edited in cooperation with committees of the American Historical 
Association and the National Council for the Social Studies (Phila¬ 
delphia, 1909 to date, monthly, $ 2.00 a year). Every well-equipped 
school library should contain the files of the National Geographic 
Magazine (Washington, 1890 to date, monthly, $ 3.00 a year) and of 
Art and Archaeology (Washington, 1914 to date, monthly, $ 5.00 a 
year). These two periodicals make a special feature of illustrations. 
Current History (N. Y., 1914 to date, monthly, $ 3.00 a year) contains 
much matter of contemporary interest. 

Useful books for the teacher’s library include H. E. Bourne, The 
Teaching of History and Civics in the Elementary and the Secondary 
School (N. Y., 1902 , Longmans, Green & Co., $ 1 . 90 ), 

Henry Johnson, The Teaching of History (N. Y., 1915 , Works on the 
Macmillan, $ 1 . 40 ), R. M. Tryon, The Teaching of History Caching of 
in Junior and Senior High Schools (Boston, 1921 , Ginn history 
& Co., $ 1 . 48 ), H. B. George, Historical Evidence ,(N. Y., 

1909 , Oxford University Press, American Branch, $ 1 . 80 ), Frederic 
Harrison, The Meaning of History and Other Historical Pieces (new ed., 
N. Y., 1900 , Macmillan, $ 2 . 00 ), J. H. Robinson, The New History 
(N. Y., 1912 , Macmillan, $ 2 . 00 ), and H. B. George, The Relations of 
History and Geography (new ed., N. Y., 1910 , Oxford University 
Press, American Branch, $ 2 . 25 ). The following reports are indis¬ 
pensable : 

Historical Sources in Schools. Report to the New England History Teachers’ 
Association by a Select Committee (N. Y., 1902, out of print). 

A History Syllabus for Secondary Schools. Report by a Special Committee of 
the New England History Teachers’ Association (N. Y., 1904, Heath, 
$ 1 . 60 ). 

A Bibliography of History for Schools and Libraries. Published under the 
auspices of the Association of History Teachers of the Middle States 
and Maryland (2d ed., N. Y., 1915, Longmans, Green & Co., 60 cents). 

xxii 


Suggestions for Further Study 


XXlll 


Atlases 


For chronology, genealogies, lists of sovereigns, and other data the 
most valuable works are Arthur Hassall, European History , 476-IQ20 
. . (new ed., N. Y., 1920 , Macmillan, $ 4 . 00 ), G. P. Putnam, 

and ^ 011 ^ 65 Tabular Views of Universal History (new ed., N. Y., 

encyclopedias Putnam, $ 3 - 00 )? and K. J. Ploetz, A Handbook of 

Universal History , translated by W. H. Tillinghast (new 
ed., Boston, 1915 , Houghton Mifflin Co., $ 3 . 75 ). 

An admirable collection of maps for school use is W. R. Shepherd, 
Historical Atlas (new ed., N. Y., 1923 , Holt, $ 3 . 90 ), with about 
two hundred and fifty maps covering the historical 
field. Other valuable works are E. W. Dow, Atlas of 
European History (N. Y., 1907 , Holt, $ 2 . 50 ), and Ramsay Muir, 
Hammond’s New Historical Atlas for Students ( 2 d ed., N. Y., 1914 , 
Hammond, $ 4 . 00 ). Much use can be made of the Literary and His¬ 
torical Atlas of Europe , by J. G. Bartholomew, in “Everyman’s 
Library” (N. Y., 1910 , Dutton, $ 1 . 00 ). Other atlases in the same 
collection are devoted to Asia, Africa and Australasia, and America, 
respectively. 

The Webster-Knowlton-Hazen European History Maps f prepared 
by Hutton Webster, D. C. Knowlton, and C. D. Hazen, include 
Wall ma s eighteen maps for ancient history and twenty-six for 

and charts medieval and modern history (Chicago, A. J. Nystrom 

& Co., complete set in chart form with tripod, $ 87 . 50 ). 
These maps may also be had separately. The maps in this series 
are on a very large scale, omit all irrelevant detail, present place 
names in the modern English form, and deal with cultural as well as 
with political subjects. They are accompanied by a Teacher’s 
Manual for each of the two sections. A somewhat similar series of 
wall maps, forty-three in number, size 44 X 32 inches, has been pre¬ 
pared by J. H. Breasted, C. F. Huth, and S. B. Harding (Chicago, 
Denoyer-Geppert Co.). 

The “Studies” following each chapter of this book include various 
exercises for which small outline maps are required. Such maps are 
Outline sold by D. C, Heath and Company, Boston, New York, 

maps Chicago. Atlases of outline maps are also to be had 

of the McKinley Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Atkinson, Mentzer 
and Grover, Chicago, A. J. Nystrom & Co., Chicago, and of other 
publishers. 

Photographs of ancient works of art may be obtained from the 
foreign publishers in Naples, Florence, Rome, Munich, Paris, Athens, 
and London, or from their American agents. In ad¬ 
dition to photographs and lantern slides, a collec¬ 
tion of stereoscopic views is very helpful in giving vividness and 
interest to historical instruction. The Keystone stereographs, pre- 


illustrations 


XXIV 


Suggestions for Further Study 


pared by the Keystone View Company, Meadville, Penn., are cor¬ 
dially recommended. Notable collections include Lehmann’s Geo¬ 
graphical Pictures, Historical Pictures, and Types of Nations, and 
Cybulski’s Historical Pictures (Chicago, A. J. Nystrom & Co., and 
Denoyer-Geppert Co. ; each picture separately mounted on rollers). 

To vitalize the study of geography and history there is nothing 
better than the reading of modern books of travel. 

In addition to the volumes mentioned below, the school ^° r ^ S a ° d 
library should contain Hammerton’s, Wonders of the description 
Past (Putnam, 4 vols.) and Johnston and Guest’s The 
World of To-day (Putnam, 4 vols.). These two series are written 
in a popular style, are accurate, and are very well illustrated. 

Allinson, F. G., and Allinson, Anne C. E. Greek Lands and Letters. 
Barrows, S. J. The Isles and Shrines of Greece. 

Clark, F. E. The Holy Land of Asia Minor. 

Dwight, H. G. Constantinople, Old and New. 

Edwards, Amelia B. A Thousand Miles up the Nile. 

Forman, H. J. The Ideal Italian Tour. 

Jackson, A. V. W. Persia, Past and Present. 

Kinglake, A. W. Eothen. 

Taylor, Bayard. Views A-Foot. 

Warner, C. D. In the Levant. 

The following works of historical fiction comprise only a selection 
from a very large number of books suitable for supplementary reading. 
For extended bibliographies see E. A. Baker, A Guide to 
Historical Fiction, and Jonathan Nield, A Guide to the fict ^ o ^ lca 
Best Historical Novels and Tales. An excellent list of 
historical stories, especially designed for children, will be found in the 
Bibliography of History for Schools and Libraries, parts viii-ix. 

Blackmore, R. D. Lorna Doone. Monmouth’s Rebellion, 1685 . 
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. The Last Days of Pompeii. \ 

Dickens, Charles. The Tale of Two Cities. London and Paris at the time 
of the French Revolution. 

Eliot, George. Romola. Florence in the latter part of the fifteenth 
century. 

Hugo, Victor. Ninety-Three. Insurrection in La Vendee, 1793 . 

- Notre Dame de Paris. Paris, late fifteenth century. 

Irving, Washington. The Alhambra. Sketches of the Moors and Span¬ 
iards. 

Kingsley, Charles. Hypatia. Alexandria, 391 a.d. 

- Westward Ho! Voyages of Elizabethan seamen and the struggle 

with Spain. 

Kipling, Rudyard. Puck of Pook’s Hill. Roman occupation of Britain. 


Suggestions for Further Study 


xxv 


Lever, Charles. Charles O’Malley. The Peninsula War. 

- Tom Bourke of “Ours.” The French wars of the Consulate and 

Empire. 

Reade, Charles. The Cloister and the Hearth. Eve of the Reformation. 
Scott, (Sir) Walter. The Talisman. Reign of Richard I, 1193 . 

- Ivanhoe. Richard I, 1194 . 

Shorthouse, J. H. John Inglesant. Life in England and Italy during the 
seventeenth century. 

Sienkiewicz, Henryk. With Fire and Sword. Poland in the seventeenth 
century. 

Thackeray, W. M. Henry Esmond. England during the reigns of William 
III and Queen Anne. 

Tolstoy, (Count) L. N. War and Peace. Napoleon’s campaigns in 
Russia. 

- Sevastopol. Crimean War. 

Wallace, Lew. Ben Hur; a Tale of the Christ. * 

Waterloo, Stanley. The Story of Ah. Prehistoric life. 

It is unnecessary to emphasize the value, as collateral reading, of 
historical poems and plays. To the brief list which follows should 
Historical be added the material in M. E. Windsor and J. Turral, 
poetry Lyra Historical (Oxford University Press) and Katharine 

Lee Bates and Katharine Coman, English History told by English 
Poets (Macmillan). 

Browning, Elizabeth B. The Cry of the Children , and The Forced Recruit. 
Browning, Robert. Pheidippides , Herve Riel , and An Incident of the 

French Camp. 

Burns, Robert. The Battle of Bannockburn. 

Byron (Lord). Song of Saul before His Last Battle, The Destruction of 
Sennacherib , Belshazzar’s Feast, “The Isles of Greece” {Don Juan , 
canto iii, between stanzas 86 - 87 ), “The Eve of Waterloo” {Childe 
Harold, canto iii, stanzas 21 - 28 ), and Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte. 
Campbell, Thomas. Hohenlinden, The Battle of the Baltic, Ride Britannia, 
and Ye Mariners of England. 

Cowper, William. Loss of the “ Royal George.” 

Dryden, John. Alexander’s Feast. 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene. Marco Bozzaris. 

Hemans, Felicia. The Landing of the Pilgrims. 

Kipling, Rudyard. Recessional , and The White Man’s Burden. 
Longfellow, H. W. The Skeleton in Armor , The Norman Baron, The 
Belfry of Bruges, Nuremberg, and The White Czar. 

Lowell, J. R. Kossuth and Villafranca. 

Macaulay, T. B. Lays of Ancient Rome , The Armada, The Battle of Ivry, 
and The Battle of Naseby. 

McCrae, John. In Flanders Fields. 

Miller, Joaquin. Columbus. 

Milton, John. Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, and To the Lord 
General Cromwell. 



XXVI 


Suggestions for Further Study 


Rossetti, D. G. The White Ship. 

Schiller, Friedrich. The Maid of Orleans, William Tell, Maria Stuart, 
and Wallenstein. 

Scott, (Sir) Walter. “Flodden Field” (Marmion, canto vi, stanzas 
19 - 27 , 33-35)- 

Shakespeare, William. Coriolanus, Julius Ccesar, Antony and Cleopatra, 
King John, Richard the Second, Henry the Fourth, parts i and ii, Henry 
the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, parts i, ii, and iii, Richard the Third, Henry 
the Eighth, and The Merchant of Venice. 

Taylor, Bayard. The Song in Camp. 

Tennyson, Alfred. Ulysses, Boadicea, St. Telemachus, St. Simeon 
Stylites, Sir Galahad, “The RevengeA Ballad of. the Fleet, Ode on 
Death of the Duke of Wellington, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and 
The Defense of Lucknow. 

Thackeray, W. M. King Canute. 

Wolfe, Charles. The Burial of Sir John Moore. 

Full information regarding the best translations of the sources of 
history may be found in one of the Reports previously cited — His¬ 
torical Sources in Schools, parts ii-iv. Hutton Webster’s Sources 
Readings in Ancient History (D. C. Heath and Com¬ 
pany, $ 1 . 60 ) and Readings in Medieval and Modern History (Heath, 
$ 1 . 64 ) provide narrative and biographical selections from the 
sources, while the same editor’s Historical Source Book (Heath, $ 1 . 60 ) 
furnishes the text of important documents with introductions and 
notes. 

Use may also be made of the following collections: 

Botsford, G. W., and Botsford, Lillie S. Source Book of Ancient His¬ 
tory (N. Y., 1912, Macmillan, $2.00). 

Davis, W. S. Readings in Ancient History (Boston, 1912, Allyn & Bacon, 

2 vols., $2.80). 

Ogg, F. A. A Source Book of Medieval History (N. Y., 1907, American 
Book Co., $1.72). 

Robinson, J. H. Readings in European History (abridged ed., Boston, 
1906, Ginn, $2.50). 

Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History 

(N. Y., 1894-1899, Longmans, Green & Co., 6 vols., each $2.00). 

Most of the books in the following list are inexpensive, easily pro¬ 
cured and well adapted in style and choice of topics to the needs 
of high-school pupils. A few more elaborate and costly 
volumes, especially suitable for teachers are indicated ^.^ rn 
by an asterisk*. For detailed bibliographies, often ac¬ 
companied by critical estimates, see C. K. Adams, A Manual of 
Historical Literature, and the Bibliography of History for Schools 
and Libraries, parts ii-v. 


Suggestions for Further Study 


XXVll 


GENERAL 

*Abbott, W. C. The Expansion of Europe, 1415-1789 (N. Y., 1918, Holt, 
2 vols., $8.00). Emphasizes cultural aspects of modern European 
history. 

Cheyney, E. P. Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England 
(new ed., N. Y., 1920, Macmillan, $2.60). 

Cunningham, William. An Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic 
Aspects (.Ancient Times) (N. Y., 1898, Putnam, $1.35). “Cambridge 
Historical Series.” . 

- An Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects (Medieval 

and Modern Times) (N. Y., 1901, Putnam, $1.35). “Cambridge His¬ 
torical Series.” 

Day, Clive. A History of Commerce (new ed., N. Y., 1923, Longmans, 
Green & Co., $2.50). The most scholarly treatment in English. 

Goodyear, W. H. Roman and Medieval Art (2d ed., N. Y., 1897, Mac¬ 
millan, $2.00). 

- Renaissance and Modern Art (N. Y., 1894, $2.00). 

Gras, S. N. B. An Introduction to Economic History (N. Y., 1922, Harper, 
$ 2 - 2 5 )* 

*Hayes, C. J. H. A Political and Social History of Modern Europe (N. Y., 
1916, Macmillan, 2 vols., $7.25). A college textbook, covering the 
period 1500-1915. 

Herrick, C. A. History of Commerce and Industry (N. Y., 1917, Macmillan, 
$1.80). 

Jacobs, Joseph. The Story of Geographical Discovery (N. Y., 1898, Apple- 
ton, $1.00). 

Jenks, Edward. The State and the Nation (N. Y., 1919, Dutton, $2.00). 
A simply written work on the development of social institutions. 

Libby, Walter. An Introduction to the History of Science (Boston, 1917, 
Houghton Mifflin Co., $2.35). 

Marvin, F. S. The Living Past (new ed., N. Y., 1915, Oxford University 
Press, American Branch, $2.00). Suggestive survey of intellectual 
history. 

Pattison, R. P. D. Leading Figures in European History (N. Y., 1912, 
Macmillan, $2.00). Biographical sketches of European statesmen 
from Charlemagne to Bismarck. 

Reinach, Salomon. Apollo; an Illustrated Manual of the History of Art 
throughout the Ages, translated by Florence Simmonds (new ed., N Y., 
1914, Scribner, $2.00). The best work on the subject. 

Seignobos, Charles. History of Ancient Civilization, edited by A. H. 
Wilde (N. Y., 1906, Scribner, $1.48). 

- History of Medieval and Modern Civilization, edited by J. A. James 

(N. Y., 1907, Scribner, $1.48). 

- History of Contemporary Civilization, edited by J. A. James (N. Y., 

1909, Scribner, $1.48). 

Van Loon, H. The Story of Mankind (N. Y., 1920, Boni & Liveright, $5.00). 

Webster, Hutton. History of the Far East (N. Y., 1923, Heath, $1.40). 

- History of Latin America (N. Y., 1924, Heath, $1.64). 


xxviii Suggestions for Further Study 


* Wells, H. G. 
$4.00). 


A Short History of the World (N. Y., 1922, Macmillan, 


PREHISTORIC TIMES 


Myres, J. L. The Dawn of History (N. Y., 1912, Holt, 90 cents). “Home 
University Library/’ 

*Osborn, H. F. Men of the Old Stone Age (N. Y., 1915, Scribner, $5.00). 
An authoritative, interesting, and amply illustrated work. 

Tyler, J. M. The New Stone Age in Northern Europe (N. Y., 1921, Scrib¬ 
ner, $3.00). 

Wilder, H. H. Man’s Prehistoric Past (new ed., N. Y., 1924,, Macmillan, 
$ 5 -°°)' 

THE ANCIENT ORIENT 

Baikie, James. The Story of the Pharaohs (M. Y., 1908, Macmillan, $4.25). 
A popular work; well illustrated. 

*Breasted, J. H. A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian 
Conquest (new ed., N. Y., 1909, Scribner, $7.00). The standard work 
on Egyptian history. 

Clay, A. T. Light on the Old Testament from Babel (new ed., Philadelphia, 
1915, Sunday School Times Co., $2.00). 

*Hall, H. R. Ancient History of the Near East (new ed., N. Y., 1920, 
Macmillan, $7.00). 

Hogarth, D. G. The Ancient East (N. Y., 1915, Holt, 90 cents), “Home 
University 'Library.” 

*Jastrow, Morris. The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria (Phila¬ 
delphia, 1915, Lippincott, $7.50). A finely illustrated work by a great 
scholar. 

Maspero, (Sir) Gaston, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria (N. Y., 1892, 
Appleton, $2.50). Fascinating and authoritative. 

*Olmstead, A. T. History of Assyria (N. Y., 1923, Scribner, $7.50). 


GREECE AND ROME 

Baikie, James. The Sea-Kings of Crete (new ed., N. Y., 1912, Macmillan, 
$4.25), A clear and vivid summary of Cretan archaeology. 

Bailey, Cyril (editor). The Legacy of Rome (N. Y., 1923, Oxford Univer¬ 
sity Press, American Branch, $3.00). Essays on Roman civilization 
by distinguished scholars. 

*Botsford, G. W. Hellenic History (N. Y., 1922, Macmillan, $4.00). 

*Botsford, G. W., and Sihler, E. G. Hellenic Civilization (N. Y., 1915, 
Columbia University Press, $4.00). Lengthy extracts from the sources, 
with commentary and bibliographies. 

Fowler, W. W. Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero (N. Y., 1909, Mac¬ 
millan, $3.00). 

*Frank, Tenney. A History of Rome (N. Y., 1923, Holt, $3.50). “Ameri¬ 
can Historical Series.” 

Gayley, C. M. The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (new ed., 
Boston, 1911, Ginn, $1.92). 


Suggestions for Further Study 


xxix 


Gulick, C. B. The Life of the Ancient Greeks (N. Y., 1902, Appleton, $2.00). 
Well illustrated. 

Hopkinson, (Miss) L. W. Greek Leaders (Boston, 1918, Houghton Mifflin 
Co., $1.75). Simple biographies of eleven makers of Greek history. 

Livingstone, R. W. (editor). The Legacy of Greece (N. Y., 1921, Oxford 
University Press, American Branch, $2.50). Essays on Greek civiliza¬ 
tion by distinguished scholars. 

Mahaefy, J. P. What have the Greeks done for Modern Civilization ? (N. Y. 

1909, Putnam, $2.50). 

*Mau, August. Pompeii: Its Life and Art , translated by F. W. Kelsey 
(N. Y., 1899, out of print). 

Oman, Charles. Seven Roman Statesmen of the Later Republic (N. Y., 1902, 
Longmans, Green & Co., $2.25). A biographical presentation of 
Roman history. 

Robinson, C. E. The Days of Alkibiades (N. Y., 1916, Longmans, Green 
& Co., $2.00). A picture of Greek life and culture in the Age of Pericles. 

*Stobart, J. C. The Glory that was Greece: A Survey of Hellenic Culture 
and Civilization (new ed., Philadelphia, 1915, Lippincott, $7.50). 

*- The Grandeur that was Rome. A Survey of Roman Culture and Civili¬ 

zation (new ed., Philadelphia, 1920, Lippincott, $7.50). 

Tarbell, F. G. A History of Greek Art (new ed., N. Y., 1905, Macmillan, 
$2.00). 

Tucker, T. G. Life in Ancient Athens (N. Y., 1906, Macmillan, $2.40). 
The most attractive treatment of the subject. 

- Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul (N. Y., 1910, Mac¬ 
millan, $3.50). 

Zimmern, A. E. The Greek Commonwealth (new ed., N. Y., 1922, Oxford 
University Press, American Branch,'$3.80). 


MIDDLE AGES 

Adams, G. B. Civilization during the Middle Ages (new ed., N. Y., 1914, 
Scribner, $2.75). 

Bateson, Mary. Medieval England (N. Y., 1903, Putnam, $2.50). Deals 
with economic and social life; “ Story of the Nations.” 

*Bryce, James (Viscount). The Holy Roman Empire (new ed., N. Y., 
1904, Macmillan, $3.75). A famous work, originally published in 
1864. 

Cutts, E. L. Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages (London, 1872, 
De La More Press, 7s. 6d.). 

Davis, H. W. C. Medieval Europe (N. Y., 1911, Holt, 90 cents). “Home 
University Library.” 

Emerton, Ephraim. An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages 
(Boston, 1888, Ginn, $1.92). 

Foord, Edward. The Byzantine Empire (N. Y., 1911, out of print). The 
most convenient short treatment; lavishly illustrated. 

Guerber, H. A. Legends of the Middle Ages (N. Y., 1896, American Book 
Co., $2.00). 



XXX 


Suggestions for Further Study 


*Hearnshaw, F. J. C. (editor). Medieval Contributions to Modern Civili¬ 
zation (London, 1921, Harrap, 105. 6 d.). 

*Luchaire, Achille. Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus, trans¬ 
lated by E. B. Krehbiel (London, 1912, Murray, ioj. 6 d.). A 
historical masterpiece. 

*Munro, D. C. The Middle Ages (N. Y., 1921, Century Co., $3.50). 
“ Century Historical Series.” 

*Munro, D. C., and Sellery, G. C. Medieval Civilization (new ed., N. Y., 
1907, Century Co., $2.50). Translated selections from standard works 
by French and German scholars. 

Tapp an, Eva M. When Knights were Bold (Boston, 1912, Houghton 
Mifflin Co., $3.00). An economic and social study of the Feudal Age; 
charmingly written for young people. 

*Thorndike, Lynn. The History of Medieval Europe (Boston, 1917, 
Houghton Mifflin Co., $3.50). An admirable college textbook. 


TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES 

Bourne, E. G. Spain in America , 1450-1580 (N. Y., 1904, Harper, $2.25). 
“American Nation Series.” 

Cheyney, E. P. European Background of American History, 1300-1600 
(N. Y., 1904, Harper, $2.25). “American Nation Series.” 

Hudson, W. H. The Story of the Renaissance (N. Y., 1912, Holt, $2.50). 
A well-written volume. 

*Hulme, E. M. The Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution, and the Catholic 
Reformation in Continental Europe (new ed., N. Y., 1915, Century Co. 
$3.50). The best work on the'subject by an American scholar. 
Seebohm, Frederic. The Era of the Protestant Revolution (N. Y., 1875, 
Scribner, $1.75). “Epochs of Modern History.” 

*Smith, Preserved. The Age of the Reformation (N. Y., 1920, Holt, 
$5.00). “American Historical Series.” 


THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 

Firth, C. H. Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England (N. Y., 
1900, Putnam, $2.50). “Heroes of the Nations.” 

Hassall, Arthur. Louis XIV and the Zenith of the French Monarchy (N. Y., 
1895, Putnam, $2.50). “Heroes of the Nations.” 

Lowell, E. J. The Eve of the French Revolution (new ed., Boston, 1893, 
Houghton Mifflin Co., $3.00). A satisfactory account of the Old 
Regime in France. 

Reddaway, W. F. Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia (N. Y., 1904, 
Putnam, $2.50). “Heroes of the Nations.” 

Thwaites, R. G. France in America (N. Y., 1905, Harper, $2.25). “Ameri¬ 
can Nation Series.” 

Tyler, L. G. England in America (N. Y., 1904, Harper, $2.25). “Ameri¬ 
can Nation Series.” 


Suggestions for Further Study 


xxxi 


THE REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC ERA 

* Bourne, H. E. The Revolutionary Period in Europe, 1763-1815 (N. Y., 

1914, Century Co., $3.50). “Century Historical Series.” 

Fisher, Herbert. Napoleon (N. Y., 1913, Holt, 90 cents). “Home 
University Library.” 

Johnston, R. M. The French Revolution (N. Y., 1909, Holt, $2.00). 

- Napoleon (N. Y., 1909, Holt, $2.00). 

Mathews, Shailer. The French Revolution (new ed., N. Y., 1923, Long¬ 
mans, Green & Co., $2.00). Extends to 1815 ; probably the best short 
survey of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. 

THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES 

* Andrews, C. M. The Historical Development of Modern Europe (N. Y., 

1896-1898, Putnam, two volumes in one, $4.50). Covers the period 
1815-1897. 

Bassett, J. S. Our War with Germany (N. Y., 1920, Knopf, $4.00). A 
scholarly history. 

*Bowman, Isaiah. The New World Problems in Political Geography (N. Y., 
1922, World Book Co., $6.00). 

Davis, W. S., Anderson, William, and Tyler, M. W. The Roots of the 
War (N. Y., 1918, Century Co., $2.50). A non-technical, yet scholarly, 
history of Europe, 1870-1914. 

Gibbins, H. de B. Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century (Edin¬ 
burgh, 1903, Chambers, 55.). 

Gibbons, H. A. The New Map of Europe, ign-igi4 (new ed., N. Y., 1915, 
Century Co., $3.00). 

Gooch, G. P. History of Our Time, 1885-ign (N. Y., 1911, Holt, 90 cents). 
“Home University Library.” 

Hayes, C. J. H. A Brief History of the Great War (N. Y., 1920, Macmillan, 
$2.75). 

*Hazen, C. D. Europe since 1815 (new ed., N. Y., 1923, Holt, 2 vols., 
$8.50). Probably the most satisfactory political history of the last 
century; “American Historical Series.” 

Hearnshaw, F. J. C. Main Currents of European History, 1815-1 gi5 
(N. Y., 1917, Macmillan, $2.50). Illuminating comment; not a con¬ 
tinuous historical narrative. 

HoRnbeck, S. K. Contemporary Politics in the Far East (N. Y., 1916, Apple- 
ton, $3.50). 

Johnston, (Sir) H. H. The Opening-Up of Africa (N. Y., 1911, Holt, 90 
cents). “Home University Library.” 

Marvin, F. S. The Century of Hope (N. Y., 1919, Oxford University Press, 
American Branch, $3.00). A sketch of intellectual and social history 
between 1815 and 1914. 

*Ogg, F. A. The Governments of Europe (new ed., N. Y., 1920, Macmillan, 
$3.90). 

* - Economic Development of Modern Europe (N. Y., 1917, Macmillan, 

$3-5o). 


xxxii Suggestions for Further Study 

Phillips, W. A. Modern Europe , 1815-1899 (5th ed., N. Y., 1915, Mac¬ 
millan, $2.90). “Periods of European History.” 

*Rose, J. H. The Development of the European Nations , 1870-1914 (new 
ed., N. Y., 1916, Putnam, two vols. in one, $4.50). 

Schapiro, J. S. Modern and Contemporary European History (Boston, 
1918, Houghton Mifflin Co., $3.75). An admirable college textbook 
covering the period from the French Revolution to the present time. 

Seymour, Charles. The Diplomatic Background of the War, 1870-1914 
(New Haven, 1916, Yale University Press, $2.00). 

Shepherd, W. R. Latin America (N. Y., 1914, Holt, 90 cents). “Home 
University Library.” 

Slater, Gilbert. The Making of Modern England (Boston, 1914, Houghton 
Mifflin Co., $2.50). Traces the economic development of England 
during the nineteenth century. 

Turner, E. R. Europe , 1789-1920 (N. Y., 1921, Doubleday, Page & Co., 
$3.50). An interesting and scholarly volume, with many maps. 


HISTORY OF THE 
MODERN WORLD 


CHAPTER I 

THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY 1 
1 . History and Prehistory 

History, the narrative of what civilized peoples have thought 
or done in past times, is based on written records. Some of 
these are inscriptions cut in stone, or painted over written rec- 
the surface of a wall, or stamped upon metal tab- ords 
lets. Other written records are documents of various sorts. 
The Babylonians in antiquity used tablets of soft clay, on which 
signs were impressed with a metal instrument. The tablets 
were then baked hard in an oven, thus forming almost indestruc¬ 
tible brick “books.” The ancient Egyptians wrote with a pen 
and a dark pigment upon a kind of paper made from the papyrus, 
a river reed native to the Nile Valley. The Greeks and Romans 
also used papyrus paper, as well as the more durable parchment 
prepared from sheepskin. Linen paper seems to have been 
a Chinese discovery, which the Arabs introduced into Europe 
during the Middle Ages. Printing, by means of movable type, 
was also known in the Far East before the first presses were set 
up in European lands about five hundred years ago. 

Inscriptions and documents preserve the memory of human 
achievements. As long as all information has to be handed 
down by word of mouth from one generation to Written rec _ 
the next — the method of oral tradition — a genuine ords and 
history is impossible. Traditional information hlstory 
soon becomes unreliable and often quite false, like a piece of 
village gossip that has been many times retold. Written records 

1 Webster, Readings in Ancient History, chapter i, “Three Oriental Peoples as 
Described by Herodotus.” 


2 


The Beginnings of History 


alone enable men widely separated in space and time to share a 
common knowledge and transmit it to future ages. Men now 
have a narrative of the past that is exact, comprehensive, and 
ever growing with the growth of civilization. 

History, based on written records, begins in different countries 
at different dates. Some inscriptions found in Egypt and Baby- 
Beginnings of Ionia belong to the fourth millennium b.c. Trust- 
history worthy records in China and India do not extend 

beyond 1000 b.c., while those of Greece and Rome are still later 
by several centuries. It was only after the opening of the Chris¬ 
tian era that most parts of Europe entered the historic age. 
And it was not until the time of the Columbian discovery that 
the New World emerged into the light of history. 

Back of history lies prehistory. Our knowledge of the pre¬ 
historic period is derived, not from written records, but from 
objects discovered in caves, refuse mounds, graves, 
and other sites. Such objects include a few human 
bones, many bones of animals, and a great variety of tools, 
weapons, utensils, ornaments, paintings, carvings, and stone 
monuments. Various European countries, including England, 
France, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy, are particularly 
rich in prehistoric remains. 

The earlier and much the longer division of prehistory is known 
as the Old Stone, or Palaeolithic, Age. This name refers to the 
The Palseo- chipped flints or other hard stones which were 
lithic Age then commonly used as tools and weapons. Al¬ 

most every region of the world has had a Palaeolithic Age. We 
know most about it in Europe. Men lived there at a time when 
gigantic icefields and glaciers covered a large part of the conti¬ 
nent; when land-bridges connected what are now the British 
Isles with the mainland, Spain and Italy with Africa, and the 
Balkan Peninsula with Asia Minor; and when such animals 
as the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, saber-tooth tiger, 
cave bear, bison, reindeer, and wild steppe horse ranged through 
the forests and over the plains. The duration of this age in 
Europe must be reckoned by tens of thousands, possibly by 
hundreds of thousands, of years. 


3 


History and Prehistory 

Palaeolithic men, at first, were naked, fireless, houseless, with¬ 
out tools or weapons, and with nothing but their hands and 
brains to secure food and protect themselves from 
the wild animals on every side. There are no liv- durSg the 
ing savages so low as this, for all have implements, Palaeolithic 
make fire, construct shelters against wind and Age 
rain, and possess other elements of culture. Palaeolithic men, 
who started without any culture, had to acquire it by their own 



The cave of Drachenloch, near Ragatz, Switzerland, contains four layers of relic-bearing 
deposits. The layers are numbered II, III, IV, and V in the drawing. At A were hearths 
with charcoal; at B an assemblage of flat stones; and at C an altar on which the skulls of 
cave bears were piled. Stone and bone implements found in the cave testify to its occupancy 
by man at a remote epoch, tens of thousands of years ago. 

unaided efforts. The remains that have survived from this age 
in Europe show them doing so. They chipped flints to serve 
as hatchets, knives, saws, chisels, borers, scrapers, and spear¬ 
heads. They made needles, fishhooks, barbed harpoons, and 
spear-throwers out of wood, bone, mammoth ivory, and rein¬ 
deer horn. Bone and wooden handles were devised by them, 
thus adding immensely to the effectiveness of tools and weapons. 
They learned how to make fire, how with fire to cook food and 
warm their cave homes, and how to use the skins of animals for 
clothing. Some of these men were talented artists, who deco- 















4 


The Beginnings of History 


rated their stone and bone implements with engravings, modeled 
figures in clay, carved stone and ivory statuettes, and covered 
the walls of caves with brightly colored paintings. The subjects 
are generally animals, though a few representations of the human 
form have been found. The cave dwellers seem to have had a 
rude religion, since they sometimes deposited tools, weapons, 
and ornaments in graves with their dead, doubtless for use in 
another life. We may also surmise, from what is known of 
existing savages, that even in the Palaeolithic Age there was 
some form of marriage and the family, some kind of government, 



A Mammoth 


An engraving on a piece of ivory tusk. Found in the rock shelter of La Madeleine, France. 
Represents a woolly mammoth charging. Comparison with the remains of mammoths com¬ 
pletely preserved in the ice of Siberia shows that the Palaeolithic artist accurately delineated 
the animal’s protuberant forehead, hairy covering, and huge, curved tusks. 

and some cooperation between groups for hunting and for de¬ 
fense against animal and human foes. The social life of man is 
very ancient, as well as his religion, art, and industries. 

The New Stone, or Neolithic, Age is so called because by this 
time men had begun to grind and polish some of their stone im- 
The Neolithic plements after chipping them. A Neolithic Age 
A s e has existed in many parts of the world, but again 

we know most about it in Europe. The map of Europe by this 
time was much the same as it is to-day, for the great ice-sheets 
had retreated toward the Arctic and the former land-bridges had 
sunk beneath the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Nearly 
all the animals characteristic of Palaeolithic times had dis¬ 
appeared, some having become extinct and others having mi- 






The Dawn of Civilization 


grated. The Neolithic Age began in Europe probably about 
ten thousand years ago. 

The Neolithic Age covered only a brief space of time, as 
compared with its predecessor, but it was an age of rapid ad¬ 
vance in r, , 

Progress dur- 

culture. ing the Neo- 
Imple- UthicAge 
ments, though still of 
stone, bone, and wood, 
were often of exceed¬ 
ing beauty and finish, 
particularly arrow¬ 
heads (testifying to 
the invention of the 
bow). The men of 
this age made pot¬ 
tery, chiefly for cook¬ 
ing vessels, plaited 
baskets, spun and 
wove textiles, pre¬ 
pared leather, built boats, and used wheeled carts. They 
domesticated dogs, goats, sheep, swine, and oxen. Most im¬ 
portant of all, they cultivated the cereals. Some of these arts 
were probably borrowed by them from Egypt and Western Asia. 
Neolithic men, in short, were not savages; they had passed from 
savagery to barbarism. 




Head of a Girl 

Mus6e St.-Germain, Paris 

A small head of a young girl carved from mammoth 
ivory. Found at Brassempouy, France, in cave deposits 
belonging to the Old Stone Age. The hair is arranged 
somewhat after the early Egyptian fashion. Of the fea¬ 
tures the mouth alone is wanting. 



Neolithic Ships 

2 . The Dawn of Civilization 

Civilization depends on the use of the metals. Stone, as the 
material for tools and weapons, is not pliable; it is apt to split 
in use; it cannot be ground to a sharp edge. No wonder that 










6 


The Beginnings of History 


substitutes for stone were sought in the metals, which alone 
give to men a real mastery of nature. Credit for the invention 
The Copper- of metallurgy seems to belong to the Egyptians. 
Bronze Age At least as early as 4000 b.c. they were working 
the copper mines on the peninsula of Sinai. The Babylonians 
probably obtained copper from the same region. Another 
source of copper was the island of Cyprus, which is rich in that 
metal. Ancient smiths in time discovered that the addition of 
a small quantity of tin to copper produced the much harder and 
tougher alloy called bronze. This appeared in Egypt and Baby¬ 
lonia about 3000 b.c. and somewhat later in Cyprus, Crete, Asia 
Minor, and Greece. Traders subsequently carried the new 
metal throughout Europe. 

The introduction of iron occurred at quite a late period, and 

in some countries after the beginning of historic times. The 

Egyptians and Babylonians made little use of 
The Iron Age . , . ^ x 

iron before 1500 b.c., and the inhabitants of Europe 

became acquainted with it at a later date. There are still some 

peoples without any knowledge of iron. The savage Australian 

tribes, for instance, continue to make stone implements as rude 

as those of Palaeolithic men in Europe. The American Indians, 

before the discovery of the New World, knew nothing of iron. 

Most of them had stone implements like those of Neolithic 

Europe, but in Mexico, Central America, and Peru copper and 

bronze were also used. India and China afford evidence of the 

regular succession in those regions of copper, bronze, and iron. 

Civilization, resting on the metals, thus arose only a few thou¬ 
sand years ago in certain isolated areas. Those in the Old 
Centers of World were principally Egypt, Babylonia (the 
early civiliza- Tigris-Euphrates Valley), northern India, and 
central China. Those in the New World were 
Mexico, Central America, and Peru. The areas mentioned 
have certain features in common. They are, or were, fertile 
regions, where food could be easily produced, wealth multiplied, 
and large populations supported by agriculture and trade. They 
are, or were, regions with a favorable climate, where excessive 
cold did not stunt body or mind nor enervating heat sap human 


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8 


The Beginnings of History 


energies. They are also well protected regions, surrounded by 
seas, mountains, or deserts, so that access to them by ruder peo¬ 
ples was not easy. Hence their inhabitants enjoyed opportu¬ 
nities not found elsewhere to develop the arts of civilized life. 

Civilization during the last few thousand years has spread 
from its original centers until now it covers the greater part of 
Spread of the habitable globe. Uncivilized peoples, who 

early civiliza- once occupied all the world, have been extermi- 
tlon nated or else have been pushed off to remote and 

inaccessible regions, such as the interior of Australia, equatorial 
Africa, northern Siberia, tropical America, and the islands of the 
Pacific. History, from the widest point of view, forms a record 
of the displacement of savagery and barbarism by civilization. 


3 . Races and Languages 

The vast size of Asia, its widely varying life conditions, and 
its central location in respect to all other land masses indicate 
Classification that this continent was the birthplace of mankind, 
of races The different races arose at a remote period, as 
man made his way from Asia into other parts of the world. 
Three primary races are recognized: the Black (Negro) race; 
the Yellow (Mongolian) race; and the White (Caucasian) race. 
This classification is not altogether satisfactory. The Austra¬ 
lians, among whom Negroid traits preponderate, nevertheless 
resemble Caucasians in some respects, and the Mongoloid 
Polynesians also possess Caucasian resemblances; while im¬ 
portant physical differences separate both Malays and American 
Indians from other members of the Yellow race. No race, 
indeed, is pure. Repeated migrations, raids, and conquests 
have brought about racial intermixture almost everywhere. 

When history opens, each of the three races occupied quite 
distinct geographical areas. The Black race held most of Africa, 
Distribution south of the Sahara, southern India, New Guinea 
of races an d the adjacent islands, and Australia. The 
Yellow race held the north, east, and center of Asia, whence it 
spread over the Malay Archipelago, the islands of the Pacific, 
and the New World. The White race was limited to Europe, 


Races and Languages 


9 


northern Africa, and southwestern Asia. Recent centuries 
have seen a wonderful expansion of the White race, which now 
forms the bulk of the population of North America, South Amer¬ 
ica, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. 



Excepting the American negroes, the Black race is still in the 
savage or the barbarian stage of culture. The same holds true 
of the Yellow race, with the important exceptions R ace and civi- 
of the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, and Japanese. Civ- Uzatlon 
ilization has been developed and history has been made chiefly 
by the White race. 

The languages of the White race belong, with some exceptions, 
to one or other of three families. Least important, Hamitic lan- 
historically, is the Hamitic family, named after g ua s es 
Ham, a son of Noah (<Genesis x, i, 6). Hamitic languages are 













IO 


The Beginnings of History 


still spoken in northern and eastern Africa, some of them by 
peoples who have more or less mixed with negroes. Ancient 
Egyptian was a Hamitic language. 

The second family is that of the Semitic languages, so called 
from Shem, another son of Noah (Genesis x, i, 22). Semitic- 
Semitic lan- speaking peoples in antiquity included Babylo- 
guages nians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and Arabs. 

To these must be added the Abyssinians of eastern Africa. The 
Semites, as the map shows, originally formed a compact group, 
but Arabs are now found everywhere in northern Africa, while 
Hebrews (Jews) have spread over all the world. 

The third family is that of the Indo-European 1 languages. 
This name indicates that they are found in both India and Eu- 
indo-Euro- rope. The peoples using Indo-European languages 
pean lan- in ancient times formed a widely extended group, 
guages which reached from India across Asia and Europe 

to the British Isles and Scandinavia. Hindus in India, Medes 
and Persians on the plateau of Iran, Greeks and Italians, and 
the inhabitants of eastern and western- Europe spoke related 
tongues. Their likeness is illustrated by the common words 
for relationship. Terms such as “father,” “mother,” “brother,” 
and “daughter” occur with slight changes in form in nearly 
all the Indo-European languages. Thus, “father” in Sanskrit 
(the old Hindu language) is pitar, in ancient Persian, pidar, in 
Greek, pater, in Latin, pater, and in German, Vater. There 
must have been at one time a single speech from which all the 
Indo-European languages have descended. But where it was 
first spoken, whether in Europe or in Asia, we cannot determine. 


4. Lands and Peoples of the East 

History begins in the East — in Asia, and in that part of 
Africa called Egypt, which was formerly considered as belong- 
Boundaries of i n g to Asia. This great continent comprises almost 
Asia one third of the land surface of the globe. Its 

boundaries on the north, east, and south are easily traced. On 

1 The alternative name “Aryan” is accurately applied only to the languages of 
the Hindus and the ancient Medes and Persians (Iranians). 


Distribution of the White Race in Antiquity, about 1000-500 b.c. 















































































* 

















♦ 



* 

















































































Lands and Peoples of the East n 

the west the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian seas, together 
with the Caucasus and Ural mountains, separate Asia from 
Europe. It should be noticed, however, that the broad, low 
range of the Urals provides no continuous crest between Siberia 
and Russia, while between these mountains and the Caspian 
the Asiatic steppe merges insensibly into the European plain. 
Europe has thus been always open to the nomadic tribes of cen¬ 
tral and northern Asia. 

Asia reaches from near the equator to a point halfway between 
the Arctic Circle and the North Pole. It has, therefore, a wide 
variety of climates. Some of the highest tempera- climatic con- 
tures known are registered in southern Asia and ditions in Asia 
some of the lowest in northern Asia. The differences in altitude, 
ranging from the Caspian basin below sea-level to the table-land 
of Tibet, whose mean elevation is about fifteen thousand feet 
above the sea, also profoundly affect climatic conditions. The 
mountains of central Asia are so high that they drain the winds 
from the ocean of their moisture, with the result that the 
interior of the continent has little rainfall and is often com¬ 
pletely arid. 

The sea, which washes only the remote edges of Asia, pene¬ 
trates deeply into Europe and forms an extremely irregular 
coast-line, with numerous gulfs and bays. The Asia and 
mighty mountains of Asia present barriers to Europe com- 
intercourse such as are not afforded by the lower pared 
ranges of Europe. Extensive deserts and barren table-lands, 
which form so characteristic a feature of Asia, are unknown in 
Europe. Asia, in proportion to its size, is not as well supplied 
as Europe with navigable streams, facilitating travel from one 
region to another. The climate of Asia is far less mild and 
equable than that of Europe. The two land masses thus present 
striking contrasts in their physical features. 

At least eight hundred million people, or almost half of the 
world’s population, live in Asia. Yet most of the continent 
is sparsely settled, for the mountain slopes, the population of 
steppes, the deserts, the forests, and the tundras Asia 
support few inhabitants. The bulk of the population is found 


12 


The Beginnings of History 


in southern and southeastern Asia, where agriculture, and not 
hunting and herding, forms the principal means of livelihood. 

All the races of man are found in Asia, but by far the largest 
part of the continent is occupied by the Mongolian or Yellow 
race. The Black race is represented by the dwarf 
Asiatic races ^ ac ^ s f oun( j [ n the Malay Peninsula. The Dravid- 

ians of southern India form a large group also with Negroid 
characteristics. Northern India, the greater part of western 
Asia, and Egypt have been occupied since prehistoric times by 
members of the Caucasian or White race. 


5. The Far East in Antiquity 


The Far East 


A physical map of Asia shows that the continent consists of 
two very unequal divisions separated by an almost continuous 
mass of mountains and deserts. These two divi¬ 
sions are the Far East and the Near East, respec¬ 
tively. The Far East begins in central Asia with a series of 
elevated table-lands, which rise into the lofty plateaus known 
as the “Roof of the World.’’ Here two tremendous mountain 
chains diverge. The Altai range, with its continuations, runs 
to the northeast and reaches the Pacific near Bering Strait. 
The Himalaya range, with its continuations, extends southeast 
to the Malay Peninsula. In the angle formed by their inter¬ 
section lies the high, cold, and barren region of East Turkestan 
and Tibet. From these mountains and plateaus the ground 
sinks gradually toward the west and north into the lowlands 
of West Turkestan and Siberia, and toward the east and south 
into the plains of China, Indo-China, and India. 

The fertile territory of central China, watered by the two 
streams Yangtze and Hoangho, was settled at a remote period 
Prehistoric by wandering tribes. They must have been little 
China better than savages, if we may accept Chinese 

traditions, which refer to a time when the people lived in caves, 
ate uncooked food, and wore the skins of animals. Later they 
grew less rude. We are told how fire was created by the friction 
of two pieces of dry wood; how the first houses were built by 


WORKS, BUFFALO, 



140 a? 































































The Far East in Antiquity 


13 


intertwining the boughs of trees; how wise rulers taught their 
subjects to smelt and forge metals, to tame wild animals, and to 
cultivate the soil. Then came the art of writing and an advance 
to the historic^ age. 

The annals of the Chinese, according to native authorities, 
begin nearly five thousand years ago, but we do not reach firm 
historical ground until about 1000 b.c. The Chi- Historic 
nese after that date not only developed an orderly, China 
progressive civilization of their own, but they also exerted great 



China, under the T'ang dynasty (618-907 a.d.), was the largest and most powerful state in 
the world. The frontiers of the empire reached as far as Persia and the Caspian Sea on the 
west, and on the southeast to Burma and the Himalaya Mountains. 


influence on neighboring peoples. The once-barbarous inhabit¬ 
ants of Korea, Indo-China, and Japan copied the arts, the 
literature, and even to some extent the religion and government 
of China, while many rude tribes of central and eastern Asia 
received from China whatever measure of civilized life they 
now enjoy. On the other hand, the Chinese remained practi¬ 
cally isolated from the rest of the civilized world from the earliest 
times until our own day. Their sole connection with the Near 











14 


The Beginnings of History 


East and with Europe was through foreign trade, chiefly in 
silks, which were sent overland or by water routes to European 
markets. The ancients knew of China as Serica, the Silk Land. 

The most striking feature of Chinese civilization is its long, 
unbroken development through so many centuries. Other civ- 
stability of ilizations, with equal and possibly superior claims 
China to permanency, have disappeared, for instance, 

those of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome. The 
stability of China may be ascribed, in part, to the existence 
of a written language common to the entire country; in part, 
to the emphasis on ancestor worship and the family tie; and, 
in great part, to the moral and social teachings of Confucius 
(551-478 b.c.), which are accepted by the whole people. There 


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Tit 




Chinese Picture Writing and Later Conventional Characters 


It is possible in some cases to recognize the original pictures out of which Chinese writing 
developed. Thus the sun, originally a large circle with a dot in the center, became a crossed 
oblong, which the painter found easier to make with his brush. Chinese is the only living 
language in which such pictures have survived and still denote what they denoted in the 
beginning. 

are, of course, many other influences making for stability. 
China has always lived largely by agriculture, that most con¬ 
servative of occupations, and the system of small holdings in 
vogue from time immemorial gives the inhabitants a proprietary 
interest in the soil. The great personal freedom which prevails 
in Chinese society and the absence of caste and rigid class 
distinctions have also contributed to make the Chinese well 
satisfied with their civilization. Finally, China is so big 
and populous that it has always been able to absorb foreign 
invaders, such as the Mongols in the thirteenth century a.d. 
and the Manchus four hundred years later. “China,” as 
an old writer well said, “is a sea that salts all the rivers 
flowing into it.” 

The map shows India as the middle of three great peninsulas 


The Far East in Antiquity 


i5 


which reach southward from the mainland of Asia. It has the 
form of a triangle, with the base resting upon the Himalaya 
Mountains and the apex projecting far into the 
Indian Ocean. Relatively to the rest of Asia, 

India looks small, but the peninsula is larger than Europe 
without Russia. 



The Great Wall of China 


The wall was begun in 214 b.c. to protect the northern frontier of China from the inroads 
of Tatar tribes, and was gradually extended until it reached a length of 1500 miles. It consists 
of two ramparts of brick, resting upon granite foundations. The space within is filled with 
stones and earth. The breadth of the wall is about 25 feet; its height is between 20 and 30 
feet. Watch towers, 40 feet high, occur every 200 yards. In places of strategic importance 
there are sometimes as many as five huge loops, with miles of country between, so that if one 
loop were captured the next might still be defened. Many parts of this colossal fortification 
are even now in good repair. 


India early attracted immigrants. The very fertile region 
now known as the Punjab, where the Indus River receives the 
waters of five great streams, began to be settled The Aryans in 
by the Aryans probably during the second mil- India 
lenium b.c. They came in successive waves through the moun¬ 
tain passes on the northwest, occupied the Indus Valley, and 
then spread over the plain of the Ganges. All northern India 
thus became the Aryan land that it remains to-day. The ear¬ 
liest documents which throw light on their history are the hymns 
of the Rigveda, composed about 1000 b.c. or later. The Aryans 


16 The Beginnings of History- 

are there represented as a hardy, vigorous people; familiar 
with agriculture, though more given to pastoral pursuits; hav¬ 
ing chiefs, but no real kings; and worshiping the “bright gods” 
of nature, with prayer and hymn and offering. The Aryans 
mingled more or less with the dark-skinned aboriginals (Dravid- 
ians), whose lands they seized and whom they made serfs and 
slaves. Rigid social classes, or castes, such as still exist in 
India, gradually developed. Petty tribal chieftainships gave 
place to powerful monarchies. The simple Vedic faith became 

the religion of Brah¬ 
manism, with its 
priests called Brah¬ 
mans, its grotesque idol¬ 
atry, its huge temples, 
and its elaborate sac¬ 
rifices. India also pro¬ 
duced the religion of 
Buddhism, which was 
first taught by the great 
reformer, Gautama 
Buddha (about 568- 
488 B.C.). Buddhism 

afterward spread from 
India throughout the 
Far East. 

The Punjab was conquered by the Persians in the sixth cen¬ 
tury b.c. It formed for nearly two hundred years the richest 
India and the an d most prosperous province of the Persian Em- 
West pire. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian con¬ 

queror of Persia, then added it to his newly formed empire. 
The year of Alexander’s invasion, 326 b.c., is the first exact 
date in the history of India. After the end of foreign rule the 
peninsula continued to be of importance through its commerce, 
which introduced such luxuries as precious stones, ivory, spices, 
and fine cotton stuffs among the Western peoples. India al- 
remained, however, outside the “Circuit of the Lands” (Orbis 
Terr arum) familiar to the ancients. 



Hindu Conception oe the Earth 


The earth as represented by a Brahman priest. The 
abode of men is situated between that of the gods above 
and the infernal regions below. The whole is supported 
by four elephants on the back of a tortoise, the symbol 
of] force and creative power. The great serpent, shown 
at the bottom, is the emblem of eternity. 













The Near East in Antiquity 


1 7 


6 . The Near East in Antiquity 

The smaller of the two grand divisions of Asia is the Near 
East. It is the region between the Black and Caspian seas on 
the north, the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian The Near 
Ocean on the south, the Indus River on the east, East 
and the Mediterranean and the Nile on the west. This part 
of Asia consists of several vegetation belts. First come the 
forests in the mountainous districts of Asia Minor, Armenia, 
and Iran. Next succeed the steppe lands, including a large part 
of the plateaus of Asia Minor, Iran, and Arabia. Finally, as 
the rainfall diminishes, the steppes become more and more arid 
and pass into semi-deserts and deserts, such as those of Syria 
and inner Arabia. The forest belt nourished in antiquity a 
migratory, hunting folk. The steppe belt formed the home of 
nomadic, pastoral tribes. As for the desert belt, that was habit¬ 
able only in oases. Men could settle down and adopt an agri¬ 
cultural life only where they were assured of a constant water 
supply and enduring sunlight. They found such assurance 
particularly in the valleys of the Tigris-Euphrates and the Nile. 
The one valley was Babylonia; the other valley was Egypt. 

Everything made it easy for men to live and thrive in Baby¬ 
lonia and Egypt. The soil, when properly irrigated, yielded 
abundant harvests. The fruit of the date palm origin of civ- 
provided a cheap and nutritious food. The hot ilization in the 
but dry climate made little shelter or clothing Near East 
necessary. The clay of the valleys and (in the case of Egypt) 
easily worked stone from the near-by mountains furnished 
building materials. The rivers served as natural highways 
for intercourse. All these favorable circumstances permitted 
the inhabitants to increase rapidly in numbers and to gather 
in populous communities. Their rude tribes now gave way 
to city-states, that is, to small, independent communities, each 
one centering about a town or a city. The city-states afterward 
combined into kingdoms. During the thousand years between 
4000 and 3000 b.c. the Babylonians and the Egyptians thus 
began to lead civilized lives, while all the rest of mankind still 


i8 


The Beginnings of History 



lagged behind as Neolithic barbarians or as Palaeolithic savages. 

Such was the origin of civilization in the Near East. 

After 3000 b.c. the Babylonians and the Egyptians overran 

the lands of their neighbors and built up the first empires. The 

^ f ^ time came when they themselves were subdued 

zation by the warlike Assyrians, whose power culminated 

throughout during the eighth and seventh centuries b.c. The 
the Near East ° . . . 

still more warlike Persians in the sixth century b.c. 

conquered all the Near East, with the exception of Arabia. 

Conquest, by forcibly unit¬ 
ing different peoples, broke 
down their isolation. 
Commerce, which led to 
the exchange between peo¬ 
ples of ideas, as well as of 
goods, had the same result. 
The Babylonians and the 
Egyptians at an early date 
conducted an extensive 
foreign trade. The first 
seagoing ships were built 
by the Egyptians for use 
on the eastern Mediter¬ 
ranean and the Red Sea. 
The inhabitants of Crete, 
between 3000-1000 b.c., 
carried Near-Eastern 
products to Greece and 
even farther west to south¬ 
ern Italy, Sicily, and the 
coast of Spain. The Cretans were followed by the Phoenicians, 
whose commercial dealings extended over much of the known 
world. By 500 b.c. a substantial unity of civilization prevailed 
throughout the Near East. 

What did the Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Cretans, 
Phoenicians, Persians, and other peoples of the Near East achieve 
during the thirty-five centuries between 4000 and 500 b.c.? 


Assyrian Soldiers 

A relief from the palace of King Ashurbanipal (669- 
625 b.c.) ; now in the British Museum, London. 








































































i9 


The Near East in Antiquity 

They smelted metals, before this was done anywhere else in the 
world. They domesticated such animals as the cow, ass, goat, 
sheep, and camel, and converted them into useful Material prog- 
servants. They transformed wild seed-grasses ress 
and plants into the great cereals — wheat, barley, and millet. 
Men could henceforth raise cereals for food and so could pass 
from the life of wandering hunters or shepherds to the life of 
settled farmers. Along with agriculture went manufacturing. 
There were blacksmiths, carpenters, stone-cutters, weavers, 
potters, and glass-blowers in every metropolis of the Near East. 
The development of the handicrafts called into existence a class 
of merchants and shopkeepers to collect manufactured products 



LiFtimf 


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Ifc 

i ffl 
lijh^ 


s m 


^ >!y S-,/ 

1 %^ 

■8*1 


nr 

n 

□c 



Tax Collecting in Ancient Egypt 

On the left three villagers, who have failed to pay their taxes, are being brought in by officers. 
The latter carry staves. On the right sit the scribes, holding in one hand a sheet of papyrus 
and in the other hand a pen. The scribes kept records of the amount owed by each taxpayer 
and issued receipts when the taxes were paid. 


where these could be readily bought and sold. Weights and 
measures were devised. Metallic money came into circula¬ 
tion, and in time the art of coinage was perfected. The use of 
money, as a medium of exchange, led naturally to the develop¬ 
ment of banking and of such credit devices as checks and promis¬ 
sory notes. Thus wealth accumulated and the luxuries and re¬ 
finements of life multiplied. This material progress gave some 
persons leisure to devote themselves to the fine arts, literature, 
and science and to all the other activities that go with an ad¬ 
vanced civilization. 

Architecture really started with the Egyptians, who first 
made use of the stone column, the arch, and the tower or spire. 

































20 


The Beginnings of History 


* 































































































. • 























- 






Mansell 


Queen Nefertiti 

A bust found at Tell-el-Amarna, Egypt, and now in the Berlin Museum. Queen 
Nefertiti was the wife of Amenhotep IV (Ikhnaton) and mother-in-law of Tut-Ankh- 
Amen. She lived in the 14th century b.c. Egyptian art reached perhaps its highest 
level at this time, becoming more naturalistic and less formal. Certainly few if any por¬ 
traits have come down to us from the ancient world more beautiful than this head of the 
Egyptian queen. 








The Near East in Antiquity 


21 


Sculpture attained high excellence in the portrait statues of 
Egypt, the engraved seals of Babylonia, and the bas-reliefs of 
Assyria. Phonetic or sound writing developed into intellectual 
a syllabic script in Babylonia and an alphabetic progress 
script in Egypt. The latter was perhaps the source from which 
the Phoenicians borrowed the alphabet which they introduced 
into Greece, which the Greeks modified and passed on to the 
Romans, and which has come down from the Romans to us. 
Phonetic writing made possible whole libraries of books, includ¬ 
ing one work that still moves the hearts of men —• the Old Testa¬ 
ment. Some advance took place in arithmetic and geometry. 
The Babylonians were good enough astronomers to distinguish 
five of the planets from the fixed stars and to predict eclipses of 
the sun and moon. To the Egyptians we owe the solar calendar 
of three hundred and sixty-five days; the leap year formed a 
Roman improvement of this calendar. The science and art 
of medicine also arose among the Near-Eastern peoples in 
antiquity. 

Human activities in the Near East seem to have gone on in 
orderly fashion much of the time. As far as we can tell, life 
was fairly safe, property was reasonably secure, Progress in 
and people were protected in their occupations, law and 
The Egyptians had courts of justice, law books, morallty 
and definite rules relating to contracts, loans, leases, mortgages, 
partnerships, marriage, and the family. The position of woman 
was remarkably high: she had full rights of ownership and 
inheritance, and she could engage in business on her own account. 
The Babylonians were a very legal-minded people. When a 
man sold his wheat, bought a slave, married a wife, or made a 
will, the transaction was duly noted on a clay contract tablet, 
which was then filed away in the public archives. The 
Hebrew laws are found in the earlier part of the Old Testa¬ 
ment. They fixed all religious ceremonies, required the ob¬ 
servance every seventh day of the Sabbath, gave numerous 
and complicated rules for sacrifices, and even indicated what 
foods must be avoided as “unclean.” The Jews, throughout 
the world, still obey these laws. Modern Christendom still 


22 The Beginnings of History 

recites the Ten Commandments, the noblest summary of the 
rules of right living that has come down to us from Oriental 
antiquity. 

The peoples of the Near East, like their prehistoric ancestors, 
worshiped various aspects of nature. The sun, or the god that 
Progress in was supposed to dwell in the sun, received partic- 
reiigion ular adoration. The Egyptians also paid much 

reverence to certain animals, while the Babylonians believed 
in the existence of many evil spirits, or demons. Out of this 
welter of primitive superstitions nobler ideas at length emerged. 

Some Egyptian thinkers, 
as early as the fourteenth 
century b.c., reached the 
conception of a single 
supreme deity. The 
Persians adopted the mon¬ 
otheistic doctrines of Zo¬ 
roaster, whose date is 
variously placed between 
1000 and 700 b.c. The 
Hebrews likewise devel¬ 
oped a monotheistic re¬ 
ligion. The Old Testa¬ 
ment shows how it came 
about. Jehovah was at 
first regarded by the He¬ 
brews as simply their own 
national god; they did not deny the existence of the gods of other 
nations, though they refused to worship them. This narrow, 
limited conception was transformed by the teaching of Isaiah and 
. other prophets. Jehovah, for them, was the God of the whole 
earth and the loving Father of all mankind. The sublime faith 
of the prophets gradually spread through the entire nation, cul¬ 
minating in the doctrine of Jesus that God is a Spirit and that 
they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 
The Christian doctrine of God is thus directly an outgrowth of 
Hebrew monotheism. The Hebrews also came to believe in 



The diadem consists of a broad band of gold with 
the asp on the forehead and the ends terminating in a 
representation of the same sacred serpent. 





The Near East in Antiquity 


23 


the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment, conceptions 
afterward taken over by Christianity. 

Nothing like democracy existed in Babylonia or Egypt, or 
elsewhere in the Near East. The common people never acted 
as voters or law-makers; they knew only the rule Limitations of 
of monarchs, such as an Egyptian Pharaoh and the civilization in 
“ Great King” (emperor) of Persia. Again, social the Near East 
equality did not exist in the Near East. Wide barriers separated 
the lower classes from the classes above them. The kings, the 
nobles, and the priests absorbed most of the 
wealth, had most of the leisure, and led 
the most comfortable lives. The workers 
were either peasants and artisans, who la¬ 
bored for a mere pittance, or slaves, who 
labored for nothing at all. Finally, popular 
education was non-existent in the Near 
East. The bulk of the inhabitants re¬ 
mained grossly ignorant. Their ignorance 
involved their intellectual bondage to the 
past. They were slow to abandon time- 
honorecj superstitions and reluctant to adopt 
new customs even when clearly better than 
the old. Consequently, civilization in this 
part of the world tended to become stereo¬ 
typed and unchanging. It reached a certain 
level, but could not pass above that level. 

The next steps in human progress were to be headed fi s ure > now in the 

British Museum, London. 

taken in Europe. 

As we have now learned,, many achievements of the Near- 
Eastern peoples found their way. into European lands. The 
chief avenues of transmission were the Mediter- The Near 
ranean water routes that had been followed by East and 
Cretans and Phoenicians and the land routes Europe 
through Asia Minor. This peninsula, by its position, belongs 
nearly as much to Europe as to Asia. It has always formed a 
natural link between the two continents. 





A Babylonian 
Demon 

A bronze, animal- 



24 


The Beginnings of History 


Studies 

x. Explain the abbreviations b.c. and a.d. In what century was the year 1925 
b.c.? the year 1925 a.d.? 2. Distinguish between the three stages of savagery, 

barbarism, and civilization, and give instances of existing peoples in each stage. 
3. Define the following terms: tribe, people, nation, race, state, kingdom, and 
empire. 4. What stone implements have you ever seen? Who made them? 
Where were they? For what were they used? 5. “The history of metals in the 
hand of man is equivalent to the history of his higher culture.” Comment on this 
statement. 6. Enumerate some important steps in progress that were taken dur¬ 
ing prehistoric times. 7. On an outline map indicate the areas occupied in antiq¬ 
uity by Semitic and Indo-European peoples. 8. “The isolation and consequent 
independent development of India and of China is one of the most salient and sig¬ 
nificant facts of history.” What does this statement mean? 9. When did India 
come under the influence of Western ideas? China? Japan? 10. On the map 
on page 7 trace the principal Asiatic trade routes. 11. On the map facing 
page 18 locate the most important Phoenician water routes and settlements. 
12. Read in the Old Testament ( Ezekiel, xxxvii) the account there given of Phoeni¬ 
cian commerce. 13. Why were the inventions and discoveries of Egyptians and 
Babylonians of such great importance in the development of civilization ? 











CHAPTER II 


ANCIENT TIMES IN EUROPE 1 
7. Lands and Peoples of the West 

History, which begins in the East, for the last twenty-five 
centuries has centered in the West, that is, in Europe. It 
ranks as the smallest, except Australia, of the Area of Eu- 
continents. Estimates of its total area vary from r °P e 
about 3,600,000 square miles to about 4,100,000 square miles. 
On the basis of the lower figure mentioned, Europe has con¬ 
siderably less than half the area of either North America or 
South America, less than one third that of Africa, and little 
more than one fifth that of Asia. It includes not quite seven 
per cent of the land surface of the globe. 

Nearly all the continent lies in the northern half of the North 
Temperate Zone, that is, within those latitudes most favorable 
to the development of the highest civilization, climate and 
The climate is profoundly affected by the Gulf rainfall 
Stream drift, which reaches the British Isles and Scandinavia. 
It gives to Liverpool a milder winter than that of Washington, 
a thousand miles farther south, keeps the harbors ice-free in 
the Norwegian fiords, and permits Russia to have an open har¬ 
bor on the Arctic. Climatic conditions are made still more 
favorable by the circumstance that Europe lies open to the west, 
with great inland seas penetrating deeply from the Atlantic, 
and with the higher mountain ranges extending nearly east and 
west. The westerly winds, warmed in passing over the Gulf 
Stream drift, can thus spread far inland, moderating the tem¬ 
peratures as far east as Moscow and Constantinople. The 
prevailing “westerlies” also bring an abundant rainfall distrib- 

1 Webster, Readings in Ancient History, chapter iii, “Early Greek Society as 
Pictured in the Homeric Poems”; chapter iv, “Stories from Greek Mythology”; 
chapter xiv, “Legends of Early Rome”; chapter xxi, “Roman Life as Seen in 
Pliny’s Letters”; chapter xxiii, “The Germans as Described by Tacitus.” 

25 


26 


Ancient Times in Europe 


uted throughout the year, except in such regions as southern 
Spain, Italy, Greece, and eastern Russia. Europe, in conse¬ 
quence, is the only continent without extensive deserts. 

The Mediterranean and the Baltic divide Europe into a num¬ 
ber of peninsulas, which are further intersected by numerous 
Access to the gulfs and bays. Though landlocked on its eastern 
sea or Asiatic side, Europe has a longer coast-line than 

Africa and South America combined. The mean distance from 
the sea of all points in the interior is only two hundred and nine 
miles, as compared with two hundred and ninety-two in the case 
of North America. No other continent has. such opportunities 
for the development of navigation and sea-borne trade. 

Europe is traversed from north to south by many rivers, navi¬ 
gable for long distances. The Rhone, emptying into the Medi- 
Inland com- terranean, affords ready entrance to the interior 
munications G f France. The Rhine and the Danube provide 
an almost continuous waterway from the North Sea to the 
Black Sea. Every part of Russia is penetrated by majestic 
streams, which still remain, even in the days of railroads, the 
principal arteries of traffic in that country. 

Another feature of European geography is the preponderance 
of lowlands over highlands. A great plain, beginning in the 
west with southern England, stretches across 
France, Belgium and Holland (the “Low Coun¬ 
tries”), and Germany, and broadens eastward into Poland and 
Russia. About two-thirds of Europe is included in this plain. 
The level country has encouraged the building of canals, which 
combine with the rivers to connect the Baltic and North seas 
with the Black and Caspian seas and these, again, with the 
Mediterranean. 

The Alps, stretching from southeastern France to the borders 
of Hungary and separating the plains of northern Italy and 
southern Germany, form the backbone of Europe. 
Their length is over six hundred miles, their width, 
from ninety to one hundred and eighty miles. The Alps do not 
present such a continuous barrier as the Himalayas or the Andes, 
which even birds avoid in their flight. No other high mountains, 


Lowlands 


Highlands 











































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. 







































10 


































































































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imi 

















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Lands and Peoples of the West 


27 


except the Rockies, have so many easy passes or offer so little 
impediment to movement across them. Furthermore, the out- 
spurs of the Alps in central and southeastern Europe are sepa¬ 
rated by transverse valleys, thus establishing convenient routes 
of communication from one region to another. 

Europe, in general, has a fertile soil and a wide variety of 
products. Only the Arctic tundra and the slopes of the higher 
mountains are unadapted for either farming, graz- Resources of 
ing, or lumbering. Agriculture is still the most Europe 
important occupation. Wheat, rye, barley, and oats can be 
cultivated from the Mediterranean northward to the head of 
the Gulf of Bothnia, that is, nearer the pole in Europe than in 
any other part of the world. Southern Europe, in the latitude 
of the central United States, produces such semi-tropical fruits 
as oranges, lemons, olives, and figs. Stock raising flourishes 
on the plains of Russia and Hungary. The Scandinavian coun¬ 
tries and parts of Spain, France, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, 
Austria, Hungary, and Russia are heavily timbered. Deposits 
of coal and iron ore abound in Great Britain, France, Belgium, 
Germany, and other countries. These varied resources of Eu¬ 
rope enable it to support a dense population. 

Europe contains more than 400,000,000 inhabitants — a 
fourth of mankind. Statistics indicate that its population has 
doubled since the opening of the nineteenth cen- Population of 
tury. The increase is partly due to improved Eur °P e 
sanitary conditions and the progress of scientific medicine, re¬ 
sulting in a lower death rate, and partly to the greater produc¬ 
tion and importation of foodstuffs, virtually eliminating famine. 
The pressure of increased numbers has been to some extent re¬ 
lieved by the enormous emigration of Europeans, during the 
last hundred years, to the unoccupied or less thickly settled 
regions of the globe. 

The present inhabitants of Europe mostly belong to the White 
race. They may be separated into three racial types. The 
Baltic or Nordic (northern) type is found in the European 
Scandinavian countries and throughout the great racial ty P es 
European plain: it is characterized by a long or narrow head, 


28 


Ancient Times in Europe 


tall stature, very light hair, blue eyes, and blond complexion. 
The Mediterranean (southern) type prevails in the peninsulas of 
southern Europe and the adjoining islands : it is short in stature 
and brunette in complexion, but is. also long-headed. The 
Alpine (central) type comes midway between the other two in 
respect to stature and complexion, but has a broad head, unlike 
either of them. Each of these racial types, despite some fusion 



with the others, still occupies a fairly well-defined area of the 
continent. The Baltic or Nordic type possibly originated in 
Europe where it is now found. The Mediterranean and Alpine 
types are believed to have entered Europe about the beginning 
of Neolithic times, the one perhaps from North Africa, the other 
perhaps from Asia. 

About sixty distinct languages are still spoken in Europe. 
Anciently, there were many more. The Turks in the Balkan 
Peninsula and the Mongols and Tatars in Russia still keep their 














The Greeks 


29 


Asiatic tongues. The same is true of the Magyars (Hungarians), 
Esthonians, and Finns, who in other respects have been thor¬ 
oughly Europeanized. The remaining languages European lan- 
of any importance belong to the Indo-European g ua s es 
family. The peoples of Slavic and Teutonic speech number 
about 150,000,000 each, and those of Graeco-Latin speech, con¬ 
siderably over 100,000,000. The Celtic and Lettic branches 
of the Indo-European family include comparatively few repre¬ 
sentatives at the present time. 1 

8 . The Greeks 

The Pyrenees, Alps, and Balkans, stretching across Europe 
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, have formed an his¬ 
torical dividing line, as well as a geographical bar- Northern and 
rier. Twenty-five centuries ago Europe north southern 
of these mountains had not entered the light of Europe 
history. Its Celtic, Teutonic, Lettic, and Slavic peoples were 
then still barbarians. We hear little of them during antiquity, 
except as their occasional migrations brought them into con¬ 
tact with the civilized Graeco-Latin peoples south of the moun¬ 
tains and along the Mediterranean. 

This great inland sea, which washes the shores of three con¬ 
tinents, — Europe, Asia, and Africa, — served as a connecting 
link between them. Because of its long and con- The Mediter- 
tracted shape, indented northern shore, and nu- ranean 
merous islands, it was well suited for early commerce. Mariners 
seldom had to proceed far from the sight of land or at a great 

1 Indo-European languages: 

1. Graeco-Latin: (Albanians), Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, 

Walloons, Rumanians. 

2. Celtic : Bretons, Welsh, Irish, Highland Scots. 

3. Teutonic: Germans, Frisians, Dutch, Flemings, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, 

English, Lowland Scots. 

4. Lettic: Letts, Lithuanians. 

5. Slavic: 

a. South Slavs: (Bulgarians), Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes. 

b. West Slavs: Czechs or Bohemians, Slovaks, Poles. 

c. East Slavs: Great Russians, Little Russians or Ruthenians, White Rus¬ 


sians. 


30 


Ancient Times in Europe 


distance from good harbors. Storms, though often fierce, are 
usually brief, since the narrow strait of Gibraltar shuts out the 
great waves of the Atlantic. Freedom from high tides also 
facilitates navigation. Such advantages made the Mediter¬ 
ranean from a remote period an avenue by which everything 
that the older East had to offer could be transmitted to the 



younger West. The various European peoples themselves were 
also able to exchange their products and communicate their 
ideas and customs along this “highway of nations.” 

A glance at the map shows how part of the Mediterranean, 
between Asia Minor on the east and Greece on the west, is an al- 
The jEgean most landlocked basin. Only narrow passages lead 
basin northward to the Black Sea, while on the south 

the long and narrow island of Crete lies like a huge breakwater. 
This basin is the Tgean Sea. Its shores and the hundreds of 
islands that dot its waters form a little, secluded world. The 
entire region has a mild and sunny climate, a fertile soil in the 
river valleys and coastal plains, and many bays and harbors. The 
Aegean basin was thus well adapted as a home for civilized man. 























POTTERY OF THE HiGEAN AGE 
From Mycenae, Troy, and Crete 














The Greeks 


3i 


The first civilization to arise in Europe was the work of the 
gifted vEgeans. They belonged to the dark-skinned, short- 
statured, long-headed branch of the White race, 

. ’ The j3£geans 

that is, to the Mediterranean racial type. The 
Tlgeans developed a civilization almost as venerable as that of 
Egypt or of Babylonia. As early as 3000 b.c. they began to 
give up their Neolithic implements and use the metal tools and 
weapons that came to them from the Near 
East. During the Copper-Bronze Age that 
followed, the iEgeans made remarkable 
progress. They built stone fortresses, pal¬ 
aces, and tombs, whose ruins are now being 
explored, excelled in painting and other 
fine arts, conducted an extensive commerce 
throughout the Mediterranean, and even had 
a system of phonetic writing (not yet de¬ 
ciphered). Their progress was most marked 
in Crete, an island so near to Egypt and 
Babylonia that it could early receive and 
profit by all the culture of the Near East. 

From Crete, in turn, cultural influences 
spread to the other Aegean islands, to 
western Asia Minor, and to the coast of 
Greece. 

Civilization flourished among the Ahgeans 
for upwards of two thousand years, only to 
be submerged under a wave of Coming of the 
barbarism. Men of the Baltic Greeks 
(Nordic) racial type, whose speech was 
Greek, came down from the north, entered Greece through the 
many passes of the Balkans, and overran the entire country. The 
iron weapons which they possessed doubtless gave them a great 
advantage in conflicts with the bronze-using Ahgeans, who must 
have been often exterminated or enslaved. The invaders also oc¬ 
cupied the island “stepping stones” between Greece and Asia 
Minor, whence they passed to the Asiatic mainland. The entire 
basin of the Aegean thus became the center of Greek life. 



A Cretan Woman 

From a fresco in the 
palace at Knossos, Crete. 
A female figure is shown 
seated on a camp stool, 
with one long glove hang¬ 
ing from the stool and 
another in her lap. The 
date of the picture is 
about 1400 b.c. 








32 


Ancient Times in Europe 


The Greeks, upon their entrance into the Mediterranean, 
were still nomads. They had cattle and other domestic animals, 
Civilizing of but did not cultivate the soil. Centuries passed 
the Greeks before they settled down in towns and cities and 
acquired the elements of civilization from the ^Egeans, with 
whom they gradually intermingled. They also owed much 
to the Phoenicians, who now began to traffic throughout the 
Mediterranean, and who introduced into Greece the industries 
and arts of the Near East. The most important importation 
from Phoenicia was the alphabet, with which the Greeks became 
familiar about 750 b.c. Knowledge of the alphabet enabled 
them to keep historic records and also to put into writing the 



qqo Dqczrjracjaci' 

wis'Csvy-r 


An Athenian Trireme 

Bas-relief found on the Acropolis of Athens. Dates from about 400 b.c. The part of the 
relief preserved shows the waist of the vessel, with the uppermost of the three banks of rowers. 
Only the oars of the two lower banks are seen. 


two epic poems attributed to Homer and known as the Iliad 
and the Odyssey. These epics, the oldest productions of Euro¬ 
pean literature, throw light on many aspects of early Greek 
society. 

The Greeks, with the sea at their doors, naturally became 
sailors, traders, and colonizers. After the middle of the eighth 
Colonial ex- century b.c. they made numerous settlements 
pansion along the shores of the Mediterranean and the 

Black Sea. 1 “All the Greek colonies,” said an ancient writer, 
“are washed by the waves of the sea, and, so to speak, a fringe 
of Greek earth is woven on to barbarian lands.” 2 To distin- 


1 See the map facing page 18. 


2 Cicero, De rejwblica, ii, 4. 
















































































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The Greeks 


33 


guish themselves from the foreigners, or “barbarians,” about 
them, the Greeks began to give themselves the common name 
of Hellenes. Hellas, their country, came to include all the terri¬ 
tory possessed by Hellenic peoples. The Greeks, henceforth, 
were confined no longer within the narrow limits of the T^gean. 

The Greek language was the strongest tie uniting the Greeks. 
They all used the same beautiful and expressive speech, which 
still lives in modified form on the lips of several Bonds of 
million people in modern Greece. Greek literature union 
likewise made for unity. The Iliad and the Odyssey were read 
and recited for centuries. Religion provided still another tie. 
All Greeks worshiped the same great deities, who were believed 
to dwell on Mount Olympus, attended the festivals and athletic 
games held at Olympia and elsewhere in their honor, and visited 
such places as Dodona and Delphi, where divine communica¬ 
tions were supposed to be received. A common language, 
literature, and religion formed cultural bonds of union; they did 
not lead to the political unification of the Greek world. 

The life of the ancient Greeks always centered in the city, for 

most of them were city dwellers. A Greek city included not 

only the area within its walls, but also the sur- 

-r,. . . , i i. The city-state 

rounding district. Being independent and self- 

governing, it is properly called a city-state. It could declare 

war, conclude treaties, and make alliances with its neighbors, 

just as is done by any modern country. Such city-states were 

not large. Athens, at the climax of her power may have had 

a quarter of a million people; Thebes, Argos, and Corinth, the 

next largest places, probably had between fifty and one hundred 

thousand inhabitants; Sparta probably had less than fifty 

thousand. These figures include all classes of the population — 

citizens, slaves, and resident foreigners. 

The citizens were very closely associated. They believed 

themselves to be descended from a common ancestor, and they 

shared a common worship of the patron god or 

, , f. . The citizens 

hero who had them under his protection. I he ties 

of supposed kinship and religion made citizenship a privilege 

which a person enjoyed only by birth and which he lost by 


34 


Ancient Times in Europe 


removal to another city-state. Elsewhere he was only a foreigner 
lacking legal rights — a man without a country. 

The independent city-states which from early times arose in 
the Near East eventually combined into" kingdoms and empires 
Civic patriot- under one government. 1 The like never happened 
ism in the Greek world. Mountain ranges and deep 

inlets of the sea, by dividing Greece into small, easily defended 
districts, made it almost impossible for one city-state to con¬ 
quer and hold in subjection neighboring communities for any 
length of time. Many city-states, moreover, were on islands 
or were scattered along remote coasts of the Mediterranean 
and the Black Sea. The result was that the Greeks never came 
together in one nation. Their city feeling, or civic patriotism, 
took the place of our love of country. 

The Iliad and the Odyssey , which give us our first view of the 
Greek city-state, also contain the earliest account of its govern- 
Government ment * Each city-state had a king, “ the shepherd 
of the city- of the people,” as Homer calls him. The king 
did not possess absolute authority, as in the Near 
East; he was more or less controlled by a council of nobles. 
They helped him in judgment and sacrifice, followed him to 
war, and filled the principal offices. Both king and nobles were 
obliged to consult the common people on matters of great im¬ 
portance, such as making war or declaring peace. The citizens 
would then be summoned to meet in the market-place, where 
they shouted assent to the proposals laid before them or showed 
disapproval by silence. This public assembly had little im¬ 
portance in Homeric times, but later it became the center of 
Greek democracy. 

Many city-states, after the opening of the historic era in 
Greece, changed their form of government. In some of them, 
Political de- f° r exam pE, Thebes and Corinth, the nobles be- 
velopment of came strong enough to abolish the kingship alto- 
the city-state Monarchy, the rule of one, thus gave 

way to aristocracy, the rule of the nobles. In Sparta and Argos 
the kings were not driven out, but their authority was much 
1 See page 17. 


Athens 


35 


lessened. Some city-states came under the control of usurpers, 
whom the Greeks called “tyrants.” A tyrant was a man who 
gained supreme power by force or guile and governed for his own 
benefit without regard to the laws. Still other city-states, of 
which Athens formed the most conspicuous instance, went 
through an entire cycle of changes from kingship to aristocracy, 
thence to tyranny, and finally to democracy, or popular rule. 



9 . Athens 

There were hundreds of city-states in ancient Greece, but the 
greatest was Athens. She surpassed all the rest in population, in 
wealth, and in power. She surpassed all the rest in Athens the 
culture, as well. Her art, literature, and philosophy “ eye of 
represented the finest flower of the Greek genius. Greece 
Her contributions to the intellectual and spiritual life of mankind 
were so many that she has been called the “eye of Greece.” 

The most glorious epoch of Athenian history occurred in the 
fifth century b.c. The Greeks at that time, under the leader¬ 
ship of Athens, had thrown back the huge armies Athenian im- 
which the “Great King” of Persia sent to conquer penahsm 
them. In order to remove the danger of another Persian 









3^ 


Ancient Times in Europe 


attack, the Athenians made a league with their Greek kindred in 
Asia Minor and on the .Egean Islands. It included over two 
hundred city-states. Some of the .wealthier members agreed 
to provide ships and crews for the Allied fleet, while the others 
contributed money. Athenian officials collected the revenues, 
which were placed for protection in the temple of Apollo on the 
island of Delos. This Delian League was a promising step 
toward federating the disunited Greek city-states. It might 
have developed into a United States of Greece, but the Athe¬ 
nians preferred to convert it into an empire. They used the 
naval force that had been formed by the contributions of the 
league as a means of bringing its members into dependence on 
Athens. The common treasury of the league was also trans¬ 
ferred from Delos to Athens. The accompanying map shows how 
extensive was the Athenian Empire at its height about 450 b.c. 

The Athenians governed imperially, but they belonged to a 
democratic state. Democracy, the rule of the sovereign people, 
Athenian de- was unknown in the Near East. 1 It formed a 
mocracy Greek contribution, especially an Athenian contri¬ 
bution, to civilization. The Athenians had now learned how 
unjust could be the rule of a king, a tyrant, or a privileged aris¬ 
tocracy. They tried, instead, to afford every free citizen, 
whether rich or poor, whether noble or commoner, an oppor¬ 
tunity to hold office, to serve on the law courts, and to par¬ 
ticipate in legislation. The center of Athenian democracy was 
the popular assembly. All citizens who had reached twenty 
years of age were members. The number present at a meeting 
rarely exceeded five thousand, however, because so many Athe¬ 
nians lived outside the walls in the country districts of Attica. 
The popular assembly met every eight or nine days on the slopes 
of a hill. The people listened to speeches and then voted, usu¬ 
ally by show of hands, on the measures laid before them. They 
settled in this way all questions of war and peace, sent out mili¬ 
tary and naval expeditions, sanctioned public expenditures, 
and exercised general control over the affairs of Athens and her 
dependencies. 


1 See page 23 . 





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Athens 


37 


This sort of democracy worked well in the conduct of a small 
city-state. It proved to be less successful in the management 
of an empire. The subject communities of the No represent- 
Delian League were unrepresented at Athens. ative system 
They had no one to speak for them in the public assembly 
or before the courts of law. Their interests, therefore, were 
always subordinated to those of the Athenians. We shall 
notice the same absence of a representative system in an¬ 
cient Rome, after that city had become mistress of the Medi¬ 
terranean. 

Even in Athens, most democratic of all Greek city-states, 
democracy was really class rule. Not all the free men —■ to say 
nothing of the numerous slaves — were citizens. 

° C/lftss rule 

The law restricted citizenship to those free men 
who were the sons of an Athenian father (himself a citizen) and 
an Athenian mother. The thousands of foreign merchants 
and artisans living in Athens were thus excluded from any part 
in its government. This jealous attitude toward foreigners 
contrasts with the liberal policy of modern countries, such as 
our own, in naturalizing foreigners. 

Athens contained many artisans. Their daily tasks gave them 
scant opportunity to engage in the exciting game of politics. 
The average rate of wages was very low. In spite industrial 
of cheap food and modest requirements for clothing Athens 
and shelter, it must have been difficult for the city workman 
to keep body and soul together. Outside of Athens lived the 
peasants, whose little farms produced the olives, grapes, and 
figs for which Attica was celebrated. There were also thousands 
of slaves in Athens, as in other city-states of Greece. Their 
number was so great and their labor so cheap that we may think 
of them as taking the place of modern machines. Slaves did 
most of the work on large estates owned by wealthy men, toiled 
in the mines and quarries, and served as oarsmen on ships. The 
system of slavery lowered the dignity of free labor and tended 
to prevent the rise of poorer citizens to positions of responsi¬ 
bility. In Greece, as in the Near East, slavery cast a blight 
over industrial life. 


38 


Ancient Times in Europe 


. . . ••••••••■•-»[ 

: J 

! .fl.il 

ipi 

Lj 

r 

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The wealth which the Athenians accumulated by trade and 
industry, together with the tribute paid by the Delian League, 
Artistic enabled them to adorn their city with statues and 

Athens buildings. The most beautiful monuments arose 

on the steep hill called the Acropolis. Here are still some ruins 
that give us an idea of Greek architecture and sculpture in their 
prime, especially the temple known as the Parthenon. 1 A Greek 
temple was merely a rectangular building, provided with doors, 
but without windows, and surrounded by a single or a double 
row of columns. The temple did not serve as a meeting place 

for worshipers, but only 
as a sanctuary for the 
deity. Less imposing than 
the majestic structures 
raised in Egypt, it had 
more beauty, because of 
its harmonious propor¬ 
tions, perfect symmetry, 
and exquisite workman¬ 
ship. The Parthenon is 
now a ruin. Many of the wonderful sculptures which once 
decorated the exterior have survived, however, and may be 
viewed to-day in the British Museum at London. 

Up against a corner of the Acropolis the Athenians built an 
open-air theater, where performances took place in midwinter 
The Athenian and spring at the festivals of the god Dionysus. A 
theater Greek play would seem strange enough to us; 

there was no elaborate scenery, no raised stage, until late Roman 
times, and little lively action. The actors, who were all men, 
never numbered more than three or four. They wore elaborate 
costumes and grotesque masks. The narrative was mainly 
carried on in song by the chorus, which met with the actors 
in the dancing ring, or orchestra. The theater held an impor¬ 
tant part in the life of Athens and, indeed, of all Greek cities. 
It formed a partial substitute for our pulpit and press, since it 
dealt either with religious and moral themes or with leading 
1 See the frontisoiece. 


Plan of the Parthenon 

The larger room (cella) measured exactly one hun¬ 
dred feet in length. 


























ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS FROM THE SOUTHWEST 



w 


Propylaea Erechtheum Parthenon Mt. Lycabettu 
















Athens 


39 


personages and questions of the day. The tragedies and come¬ 
dies produced by Athenian playwrights originated a new type 
of literature — the drama. 

The playwrights composed in verse, but there were also Athe¬ 
nians who learned to write in prose. The first great prose writer 
of Greece, or of any other country, was the “father Athenian 
of history,” Herodotus. Though born in Asia P rose writers 
Minor, he passed much of his life at Athens, mingling in its 



Corner of a Doric 
Fagade 


Corner of an Ionic 
Fagade 


Orders of Greek Architecture 


brilliant society and coming under the influences, literary and 
artistic, which that city afforded. Herodotus wrote about 
the Persian wars, but also wove into his narrative accounts of 
the Egyptians, Babylonians, and other Oriental peoples. His 


































































40 


Ancient Times in Europe 


work is one of our chief sources of information for ancient his¬ 
tory. Two other Athenian historians were Thucydides and 
Xenophon. Greek prose was further developed by the orators, 
who flourished in democratic Athens. 

The Greeks really founded philosophy, which means an intel¬ 
ligent effort to probe the mysteries of existence and human 
Athenian nature. No one did more in this direction than 

philosophers the Athenian, Socrates. A true “lover of wisdom” 
and one of the greatest teachers of any age, Socrates kept no 
school; he never wrote anything; he taught only by conver¬ 
sation with any one willing to discus?moral or religious subjects. 
When an old man, Socrates was convicted of impiety and of 

corrupting the youth 
of Athens by his doc¬ 
trines. He suffered 
death, in consequence, 
but his philosophy did 
not perish. It found 
an exponent in his 
disciple Plato, whose 
writings, known as Dia¬ 
logues , took the form 
of question and answer 
that Socrates had used. 
Plato’s works were profound in thought and admirable in 
style. They have continued to influence philosophic specu¬ 
lation to our own day. Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, was almost 
as much a scientist as a philosopher. He investigated the 
ideas underlying the arts of rhetoric and poetry; he gathered 
the constitutions of many Greek city-states and drew from 
them some general principles of politics; he examined collec¬ 
tions of strange plants and animals in order to learn their struc¬ 
ture and habits; he studied the acts and beliefs of men in 
order to write treatises on ethics. Perhaps Aristotle’s supreme 
achievement was the creation of logic, or the science of reason¬ 
ing. His works, besides being reverently studied for centuries 
after his death, are still textbooks in our universities. 



Socrates and Plato 











The Graeco-Oriental World 


41 


What the Greeks, and particularly the Athenians, originated 
in art, literature, and philosophy still abides in the world. Much 
of it is unexcelled; all of it is an inspiration. There Athens the 
is no exaggeration, consequently, in the proud words “ school of 
which the statesman, Pericles, applied to Athens HeUas 
in the fifth century b.c. : “Our city is equally admirable in peace 
and in war. We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our 
tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. 
Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there 
is real use for it. To acknowledge poverty with us is no disgrace; 
the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian 
citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own 
household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have 
a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who shows 
no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless, 
character. . . . In short, Athens is the school of Hellas.” 1 

10 . The Graeco-Oriental World 

Nearly all the city-states of central and southern Greece, 

including Athens, were conquered in the latter part of the fourth 

century B.c. by Macedonia. This was a large Tfae Greek 

kingdom that had grown up in northern Greece, city-states 

The Macedonians, though less civilized than the conquered by 
n 1 • c ~ r 1 Macedonia 

other Greeks, excelled m warfare. One of their 

kings, whom history knows as Philip the Great, created an army 
of well-drilled, professional soldiers, which he led to victory 
over the city-states. It was the victory of an absolute monarchy 
in conflict with free, self-governing, but disunited common¬ 
wealths. The Greek city-states had had their day. Never 
again did they become first-class powers. 

Philip’s son, the famous Alexander the Great, led the Mace¬ 
donian army into Asia and against the Persian Em- x , 

J . Conquest of 

pire. 2 The conquest of that enormous empire, the Persian 

whose eastern and western frontiers were nearly E mpire 

, Macedonia 

three thousand miles apart, occupied Alexander less 

than eleven years. He died in 323 b.c., while still a young 

1 Thucydides,' ii, 39-41. 2 See page 18. 


42 


Ancient Times in Europe 


man, and before he had time to consolidate his extensive domin¬ 
ions. Upon his death they broke up into a number of kingdoms, 
including Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt, which were ruled by 
dynasties descended from Alexander’s generals. These three 
states remained independent, though with shifting boundaries, 

until the era of Roman expan¬ 
sion in the ancient world. 

Alexander’s conquest of the 
Persian Empire and the sub- 
Hellenizing of sequent establish- 
the Near East men t of Grseco- 

Macedonian, or Hellenistic , 1 
kingdoms resulted in the dis¬ 
appearance of the barriers 
which had so long separated 
Europe and Asia. The Near 
East now lay open to Greek 
merchants and artisans, archi¬ 
tects and artists, philosophers, 
Alexander the Great scientists, and writers. They 

After a medallion found at Tarsus in Asia brought their Greek Culture 

Mmor - with them and became the 

teachers of those whom they had called “barbarians.” 

The Hellenizing of the Near East was begun by Alexander, 
who founded no less than seventy cities in Egypt, western 
Hellenistic Asia, central Asia, and northern India. Alex- 
cities ander’s successors continued city-building on a 

still more extensive scale. The Hellenistic cities, unlike 
Greek city-states, did not enjoy independence, but formed a 
part of the kingdom in which they were situated. They had 
broad streets, well paved and sometimes lighted at night, a 
good water supply, and baths, theaters, gymnasiums, and parks. 
Such splendid foundations formed the real backbone of Hellenism 
in the Near East. Their inhabitants, whether Greeks or “ bar¬ 
barians,” spoke Greek, read Greek, and wrote in Greek. For 

1 The term “Hellenic” refers to purely Greek culture; the term “Hellenistic” to 
Greek culture as modified by contact with the Near East. 




EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 336-323 B. C. 

1 Under Alexander I I Allied States 


Independent States 


Route of Alexander 



THE KINGDOMS OF ALEXANDER’S SUCCESSORS 

“I Kingdom of the [ - ) Kingdom of the i | Macedonian 

- Seleucids 1 -- 1 Ptolemies 1 - 1 Kingdom 

_Route of Nearchus 















































































































The Graeco-Oriental World 


43 


the first time in history the largest part of the civilized world 
had a common language. 

Some Hellenistic cities were only garrison posts in the heart 
of remote provinces or along the frontier. Many more, such as 
Alexandria in Egypt, Seleucia in Babylonia, An- ^ ^ 

tioch in Syria, and Rhodes on the island of that intercourse cf 
name, were thriving business centers through ^ st t and 
which Asiatic products, even those of distant India 
and China, reached Greece. The standard of living was raised 
by the introduction of luxuries to which the old Greeks had been 
strangers. 

East and West exchanged ideas as well as commodities. 
What the Greeks had accomplished in art, litera- ^ ^ ^ ^ 
ture, philosophy, and science became familiar to relations 
the Egyptians, Babylonians, and other Oriental between East 
peoples. They, in turn, introduced the Greeks to 
their achievements in the realm of thought. 

The fusion of East and West went on most thoroughly at 
Alexandria in Egypt. It was the foremost Hellenistic center, 
because of its unrivaled site for commerce with 
Africa, Asia, and Europe. The inhabitants in¬ 
cluded not only Egyptians, Greeks, and Macedonians, but also 
Jews, Syrians, Babylonians, and other Orientals. The Mace¬ 
donian rulers of Egypt made Alexandria their capital and 
adorned it with imposing public buildings and master¬ 
pieces of Greek art. Learning flourished at Alexandria. The 
city possessed in the royal Museum, or Temple of the Muses, 
a genuine university, with lecture halls, botanical and zoological 
gardens, an astronomical observatory, and a great library. 
The collection of books, in the form of papyrus or parchment 
(sheepskin) manuscripts, finally amounted to over five hundred 
thousand rolls, or almost everything that had been written in 
antiquity. The more important works were carefully edited 
by Alexandrian scholars, thus supplying standard editions of 
the classics for other ancient libraries. The learned men at 
Alexandria also translated into Greek various productions of 
Oriental literature, including the Hebrew Old Testament. 


Alexandria 



The World According to Ptolemy 

See note on next page. 





































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































The Graeco-Oriental World 


45 



Note to Map. — The eminent scientist Ptolemy, who lived at Alexandria about the middle 
of the second century a.d., summed up in his map of the world the geographical knowledge of 
the ancients. Ptolemy’s inaccuracies are obvious: his Europe extends too far west; his Africa 
is too wide; and his Asia is vastly exaggerated at its eastern extremity. He knows practically 
nothing of the Baltic Sea, marking only a small island as Scandia or Scandinavia. His idea of 
the British Isles is also vague. Ptolemy shows some knowledge of central and southern Asia, 
but India is not represented as a peninsula, and a huge gulf, with China on its farther shore, 
is placed in the remote east. The size of Ceylon is exaggerated. Notice that Ptolemy repre¬ 
sents the Nile as rising in two lakes and that he marks the Mountains of the Moon in their 
approximate location. Two famous voyages of discovery have been indicated on this map, 
namely, that of the Carthaginian Hanno to the Gulf of Guinea (about 500 b.c.) and that of 
the Greek Pytheas possibly as far as the Baltic (about 330 b.c.). 


Science likewise flourished in Alexandria, for the professors, who 
lived in the Museum at public expense, had the quiet and leisure 
so necessary for research. Much progress took place at this 


Lighthouse of x\lexandria (Restored) 

The island of Pharos, in the harbor of Alexandria, contained a lighthouse built about 280 
B.c. It rose in three diminishing stages, the first being square, the second octagonal, and 
the third round, to a height of nearly four hundred feet. On the apex stood a statue. The 
lighthouse was considered by the ancients one of the “Seven Wonders” of the world. It 
collapsed (as the result of repeated earthquakes) in 1326 A.D. The minarets of Moslem mos¬ 
ques and the spires of Christian churches are both derived from this famous structure. 

time in mathematics, astronomy, physics, geography, anatomy, 
medicine, and other branches of knowledge. The Greeks in 
their investigations must have been greatly helped by the scien- 


































46 


Ancient Times in Europe 


tific lore of Egypt and Babylonia, which was now disclosed to 
the world at large. Graeco-Oriental science, in turn, passed 
over to the Romans, and later became known to the Moslem 
and Christian peoples of the Middle Ages. 

The Greeks who emigrated in such numbers to the Near East 
surrendered local attachments and prejudices, which had so 
Cosmopoli- l° n g divided them, to be “cosmopolitans,” or 
tanism citizens of the world. They likewise lost old feel¬ 

ings of antagonism toward non-Greeks. Henceforth the dis¬ 
tinction between Greek and Barbarian gradually faded away, 
and mankind became ever more unified in sympathies and as¬ 
pirations. This Graeco-Oriental world about the eastern Medi¬ 
terranean was now to come in contact with the great power 
which had been arising in the western Mediterranean -— Rome. 

11. The Romans 

The early history of Italy centered about the Tyrrhenian Sea, 
which lies between the Italian Peninsula on one side and Sicily, 
Basin of the Sardinia, and Corsica on the other side. The 
Tyrrhenian basin of this sea, though not so landlocked as that 
of the Aegean and without numerous small islands, 
nevertheless forms a well-defined region. The lands surround¬ 
ing it have a genial climate and a great variety of natural pro¬ 
ductions, including grain, grapes, olives, oranges, and lemons. 
The most extensive plains of central Italy and nearly all the good 
harbors of the entire peninsula are on or near its shores. As 
a home for civilized man, the Tyrrhenian basin offered many 
advantages. 

The first civilization in Italy was introduced there by the 

Etruscans. They came to the peninsula by sea, perhaps from 

„ Asia Minor, and as early as 1000 b.c. founded a 

Etruscans . _ _ 

strong power m the region called after them Etruria 

(modern Tuscany). The Etruscan dominions in time extended 

along the coast from the Bay of Naples to the Gulf of Genoa 

and inland to the Po Valley as far as the Alps. These Etruscans 

are a mysterious people. No one has been able to read their 

language. It is quite unlike any Indo-European tongue, though 


































































































































. 



























• ' 

















































. 
























■ 
















































' 









• 






















































The Romans 


47 


written in an alphabet borrowed from Greek settlers in Italy. 
Many other cultural influences reached the Etruscans from 
abroad. Babylonia gave to them the principle of the round 
arch and the practice of divination. Etruscan graves contain 
Egyptian seals and vases bearing Greek designs. The Etruscans 
were skillful workers in bronze, iron, and gold. They built 
cities with massive walls, arched gates, paved streets, and under¬ 
ground drains. A great part of Etruscan civilization was ulti¬ 
mately absorbed in that of Rome. 

The Etruscans were followed by the Greeks. Greek colonies 
began to be planted in southern Italy after the middle of the 
eighth century b.c. The map shows that these G ^ 
were all on or near the sea, from the Gulf of Taranto 
to Campania. North of the “heel” of Italy extends an almost 
harborless coast, where nothing tempted the Greeks to settle. 
North of Campania, again, they found the good harbors already 
occupied by the Etruscans. The Greeks, in consequence, never 
penetrated deeply into Italy. Room was left for the native 
Italians, under the leadership of Rome, to build up their own 
power in the peninsula. 

Barbarous peoples of the Mediterranean racial type occupied 
Italy, as well as Greece, during Neolithic times. After them 

came invaders apparently of the Baltic (Nordic) .. 

. , TIT- 1 Italians 

racial type, who spoke an Indo-European lan¬ 
guage closely relately both to Greek and to the Celtic tongues 
of western Europe. They entered the Italian Peninsula through 
the numerous Alpine passes, probably not long after the Greeks 
had found a way into the Balkan Peninsula. Wave after wave 
of these northerners flowed southward, until the greater part 
of Italy came into their possession. We must assume that 
the invaders, having overcome all armed opposition, mingled 
more or less with the earlier inhabitants of Italy. There is 
every reason to believe that the historic Italians, like the his¬ 
toric Greeks, were a mixed people. 

The Italians who settled in the central, eastern, and southern 
parts of the peninsula were highlanders. They formed many 
tribes, including the Umbrians and the Samnites. The western 


4 8 


Ancient Times in Europe 


Italians, or Latins, were lowlanders. They dwelt in Latium, 
originally only the “flat land” extending south of the Tiber 
Italian high- Ri ver between the mountains and the sea. The 
landers and Latin plain is about thirty by forty miles in size, 
lowlanders so j^ though not very productive, can never¬ 

theless support a considerable population devoted to herding 
and farming. The Latins, as they increased in number, gave 



up tribal life and established little city-states, like those of 
Greece. The need of defense against their Etruscan neighbors 
across the Tiber and the Italian tribes in the adjacent mountains 
bound them together. At a very early period they united in 
the Latin League. The chief city in this league was Rome. 

Rome began as a Latin settlement on the Palatine Mount. 
Founding of It was the central eminence in a group of low hills 
Rome just south of the Tiber and about fourteen miles 

from its ancient mouth. Shallow water and an island made 







The Romans 


49 


the river easily fordable at this point for Latins and Etrus¬ 
cans and facilitated intercourse between them. Villages also 
arose on the neighboring mounts, and these in time combined 
with the Palatine community. Rome thus became the City 
of the Seven Hills. 1 

Rome, from the start, owed much to a, fortunate location. 
The city was easy to defend. It lay far enough from the sea 
to be safe from sudden raids by pirates, and it Advantages of 
possessed in the seven hills a natural fortress, the site of 
The city was also well placed for commerce on the Rome 
only navigable stream in Italy. Finally, Rome was almost in 
the center of Italy, a position from which its warlike inhabitants 
could most easily advance to 
the conquest of the peninsula. 

We cannot trace in detail 
the development of early 
Rome. The ac- 

...... Rome be- 

counts which have comes a re¬ 
reached us are a P u £ lic > 509 
tissue of legends, 
dealing with Romulus, the sup¬ 
posed founder of the city, and 
the six kings who followed him. 

What seems certain is that the 
Roman city-state very soon fell under the sway of the Etrus¬ 
cans, who governed it for perhaps two centuries or more. 
Etruscan tyranny at length provoked a successful uprising, and 
Rome became a republic (509 b.c.). 

The career of Rome as a republic lasted nearly five hundred 
years. Her external history, throughout this long period, is one 
of almost uninterrupted warfare, which resulted Roman expan¬ 
in steady conquests and annexations of territory, sion over Italy 
Two stages in the expansion of Rome over Italy may be distin¬ 
guished. The first (ending in 338 b.c.) marked the triumph 
of Rome over her former allies, the Latins, and the establish- 

1 The Romans believed that their city was founded in 7S 3 b.c., from which year 
all Roman dates were reckoned. 



Early Roman Bar Money 


A bar of copper having the value of an ox, 
whose figure is stamped upon it. Dates from 
the fourth century b.c. The Romans subse¬ 
quently cast copper disks to serve as coins. 





50 


Ancient Times in Europe 


ment of her supremacy in Latium. The second (ending in 264 
B.c.) saw her supremacy established over the Etruscans in 
Etruria, the Umbrians, Samnites, and other Italian peoples, 
and the Greek cities in southern Italy. Rome now ruled from 
the strait of Messina northward to the Arno River. The central 
city of the peninsula had thus become the center of a united 
Italy. It should be noticed, however, that as yet Rome pos¬ 
sessed only the central and southern parts of what is the modern 
kingdom of Italy. The barbarous Gauls held the Po Valley, 
while most of Sicily and Sardinia was controlled by Carthage, 
a Phoenician colony in North Africa. 

As Rome extended her rule in Italy, she bestowed upon the 
conquered peoples citizenship. It formed a great gift, for a 

Roman citizen enjoyed many privileges. He could 
Extension of .... . . , 

Roman citi- hold and exchange property under the protection 

zenship to 0 f Roman law; could contract a valid marriage 

which made his children themselves citizens; and 
could vote in the popular assemblies at Rome and hold public 
office there.' This extension of the citizenship to those who 
formerly had been enemies was something quite novel in history, 
and it was the great secret of Rome’s success as a governing 
power. 

The Romans, as their conquests proceeded, founded many 
colonies in various parts of Italy. These usually consisted of 
Roman colo- veteran soldiers or poor peasants, who wanted 
nies and roads farms of their own. Such colonies, being offshoots 
of Rome, naturally remained faithful to her interests. They 
were united with one another and with Rome by an extensive 
system of roads, facilitating the rapid dispatch of troops, sup¬ 
plies, and official messages into every corner of Italy. The 
roads also became avenues of trade and travel and so helped 
to make the Italian peoples one in blood, language, religion, and 
customs. Rome thus began in Italy the process of Romaniza- 
tion which she was to extend later to the countries of western 
Europe. 

About two centuries and a quarter (264-31 b.c.) sufficed for 
the expansion of Rome beyond Italy. The only serious resist- 


The Romans 


5i 


ance which she met was from Carthage, and with Carthage 

she fought three bloody “Punic” 1 wars. They ended in the 

destruction of that great city. Rome annexed the 

0 _ J Roman expan- 

Carthaginian territories in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, sion beyond 
and North Africa, thus bringing the western Medi- Italy 
terranean under her sway. The Greek city-states and the Hellen¬ 
istic kingdoms in the eastern Mediterranean were also subdued. 
Meanwhile, the exploits of Julius Caesar in Gaul carried the 
Roman eagles to the shores of the Atlantic. Gaul soon received 
and speedily adopted the Latin language, Roman law, and the 
customs and religion of Rome. “Let the Alps sink,” exclaimed 
the orator Cicero, “ the gods raised them to shelter Italy from 
the barbarians, but now they are no longer needed.” 

Rome, in dealing with her new dependencies overseas, did not 
follow the methods that had proved so successful in Italy. She 
made her subject territories outside of Italy into Provincial ad- 
provinces, obliging the inhabitants to pay tribute ministration 
and to accept the oversight of Roman officials. The result was 
much oppression of the provincials by tyrannical governors and 
greedy tax-collectors. These evils might have been avoided, 
at least in part, if the provincials had been allowed to send dele¬ 
gates to speak and act for them, before the Senate and popular 
assemblies of Rome. The representative system, however, met 
no more favor with the Romans than with the Athenians. 2 
Rome, like Athens, was a city-state suddenly called to the re¬ 
sponsibilities of imperial rule. The machinery of her government 
had been devised for a small republican community, and it could 
not work efficiently when extended to distant lands and peoples. 

The Romans won dominion abroad, only to lose freedom at 
home. The Roman city-state, once a self-governing common¬ 
wealth, became gradually transformed into an Rome be _ 
empire. Two principal causes of the transforma- comes an em- 
tion may be mentioned. The first cause was politi- pire ’ 
cal strife between Roman citizens. The class struggles be¬ 
tween rich and poor, aristocrats and commoners, offered every 
opportunity for unscrupulous politicians to mount to power, 
1 “Punic” is another form of the word “ Phoenician.” 2 See page 37. 


52 


Ancient Times in Europe 


now with the support of the nobles, now with that of the popu¬ 
lace. The second cause was foreign warfare, which enabled 
ambitious generals, supported by their soldiery, to become 
supreme in the state. It was Julius Caesar, great both as a 
politician and as a general, who finally overcame all resistance 
and set up one-man rule at Rome. Caesar was soon assassinated, 
but his grandnephew and heir, Augustus, gained supreme power 
in his stead. With the accession of Augustus Rome became 
an empire (31 b.c.). 

12. The Graeco-Oriental-Roman World 

The Roman Empire in the age of Augustus girdled the Medi¬ 
terranean and spread over three continents. On the west and 
The Roman south it found natural barriers in the Atlantic 
Empire Ocean and the Sahara Desert; on the east it ex¬ 

tended to the Euphrates; and on the north it reached to the 
Danube and the Rhine. The successors of Augustus enlarged 
the empire by conquering the island of Britain (except the Scot¬ 
tish Highlands), the district of Dacia (modern Rumania), and 
additional territories in the Near East. 

The empire, at the zenith of its power in the second century 
of our era, included forty-three provinces. The provincials 
Roman citi- enjoyed far better treatment by the new imperial 
zenship government than they had ever received at the 

hands of the republican Senate and popular assemblies. Fur¬ 
thermore, Augustus and his successors steadily extended Roman 
citizenship to the provincials, and in 212 a.d. Caracalla issued 
a decree making all freemen in the empire citizens. Germans, 
Britons, Gauls, Iberians (Spaniards), North Africans, Egyptians, 
Arabs, Jews, Syrians, Armenians, and Greeks were henceforth 
Romans, equally with the people of Italy. Rome, instead of 
being the ruling city of the empire, became merely its capital 
or seat of government. 

The provinces were protected against invasion by a standing 
The Roman army of about four hundred thousand men. The 
peaee soldiers belonged to all the different nationalities 

within the empire and served for a long period of years. 





























































25° 

30° 

O 

lO - 

CO - 

"1 O 

o 

• 

45° 

\ 

50° 

\ 

65° 

60° 

\ 


Romanized section of the Empire 

Greek section of the Empire 

Oriental section of the Empire 

——, Boundary of the Roman Empire at the death of 
- Augustus, 14 A. D. 

-Important Roman Roads 

X Battlefields (with the year of battle) 

Province names thus: ILLYRIA 



Longitnde East 25° from Greenwich 30 


THE M.-N.WORK S, BUFFALO, N.Y. 

40° 
























































The Graeco-Oriental-Roman World 


53 


When not engaged in drill or border warfare, they built the great 
highways which, starting from Rome, penetrated every province; 
erected bridges and aqueducts; and along the exposed frontiers 
raised forts and walls. Rome long found security in her roads 
and fortifications and in the living rampart of her legions. The 
civilized world within the boundaries of the empire rested for 
centuries under what an ancient writer calls “the immense 
majesty of the Roman peace.” 

The Roman Empire consisted of three sections, differing 
widely in their previous history. There was a Greek section, 
centering about the iEgean; there was an Oriental Sections of 
section, which included such parts of the Near the Roman 
East as had come under Roman rule; and there Empire 
was a distinctively Roman or Latin section, which consisted of 
the western provinces. In the Near East the Romans came only 
as conquerors, and their culture never took deep root there. 
The same was true of the ^Egean lands, where the Greek lan¬ 
guage and customs held their ground. In the barbarian West, 
however, the Romans appeared not only as conquerors, but 
also as civilizers. The Romanization of the western provinces 
(modern Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and 
England), together with the Rhine and Danube valleys, forms 
quite the most significant aspect of ancient history. It was 
particularly their law, their language, and their municipal in¬ 
stitutions which the Romans gave to European peoples. 

The code of the Twelve Tables, framed by the Romans al¬ 
most at the beginning of the republic, was too harsh, technical, 
and brief to meet the needs of a growing state. Roman law 
The Romans gradually improved their legal sys¬ 
tem, after they began to rule over conquered territories and 
to become familiar with the customs of foreign peoples. Roman 
law in this way took on an exact, impartial, liberal, and humane 
character. It limited the use of torture to force confession from 
persons accused of crime. It protected the child against a 
father’s tyranny and wives against ill-treatment by their hus¬ 
bands. It provided that a master who killed a slave should be 
punished as a murderer, and even taught that all men are orig- 


54 


Ancient Times in Europe 


inally free by nature and therefore that slavery is contrary to 
natural right. Justice it defined as “the steady and abiding 
purpose to give to every man that which is his own.” 

The Corpus During the reign of Justinian (527-565) all the 
Juris Civilis sources of Roman law, including the legislation of 
the popular assemblies, the decrees of the Senate, the edicts of 
the emperors, and the decisions of learned lawyers, were col¬ 
lected and put into scientific form. 
The result was the famous code called 
the Corpus Juris Civilis, the “Body of 
Civil Law.” It passed from ancient 
Rome to modern Europe, becoming 
the foundation of the legal systems of 
Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and 
other Continental countries. Even 
the Common Law of England, which 
has been adopted by the United States, 
owes some of its principles to the 
Corpus Juris Civilis . 1 The law of 
Rome, because of this widespread in¬ 
fluence, is justly regarded as one of her 
most important gifts to the world. 

The Romans carried their language 
to the barbarian countries of the West, 

Latin and the aS the y had Carried il 
Romance throughout Italy. The 

languages Latin spoken by Roman 

colonists, merchants, soldiers, and 
public officials was eagerly taken up 
by the natives, who tried to make themselves as much like 
their conquerors as possible. This provincial Latin became 
the basis of the so-called Romance languages — French, 
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian—which arose in 
the Middle Ages. Even our English language, which comes to 
us from the speech of the Teutonic invaders of Britain, con- 

1 Roman law still prevails in the province of Quebec and the state of Louisiana, 
in the Philippines, and in all Latin-American countries. 



Youth Reading a Papy¬ 
rus Roll 


Relief on a sarcophagus 
The papyrus roll was sometimes 
very long. The entire Iliad or 
Odyssey might be contained in a 
single manuscript measuring one 
hundred and fifty feet in length. 
In the third century a.d. the un¬ 
wieldy roll began to give way to 
the tablet, composed of a number 
of leaves held together by a ring. 
About this time, also, the use of 
vellum, or parchment made of 
sheepskin, became common. 










The Graeco-Oriental-Roman World 


55 


tains so many words of Latin origin that we can scarcely utter 
a sentence without using some of them. The language of Rome, 
as well as the law of Rome, still remains to enrich the intellectual 
life of mankind. 

The peace and prosperity of the empire during th® first and 
second centuries of our era fostered the growth of cities. They 
were numerous, and many of them, even when cities of the 
judged by modern standards, were large. Rome Roman world 
had a population of between one and two millions. Alexandria 
came next in size, and Syracuse ranked as the third metropolis 
of the empire. Italy had such important centers as Naples, 
Genoa, Florence, Verona, Milan, and Ravenna. In Gaul were 
Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Paris, Strasbourg, Cologne, and 
Mainz — all places with 



a continuous existence to 
the present day. In Spain 
were Barcelona, Cadiz, 
Cartagena, and Seville. In 
Britain were London, York, 
Lincoln, and Chester. 
Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, 
Egypt, and North Africa 


Latin Inscription 

An inscription on a marble tablet from a 
Roman bath. 


contained a great number 

of cities, some of them established in Hellenistic times and 
others of Roman formation. 

Every city was a miniature Rome, with its forum and senate- 
house, its temples, theaters, and baths, its circus for horse racing, 
and its amphitheater for gladiatorial shows. The ^ ^ 
excavations at Pompeii have revealed to us the 
appearance of one of these Roman cities. What we find at 
Pompeii was repeated on a more splendid scale in hundreds 
of places from the Danube to the Nile, from Britain to Arabia. 

The cities of Roman origin, especially those in the western 
provinces, copied the political institutions of Rome. Each had 
a council modeled on the Senate, and a popular city govem- 
assembly, which chose magistrates corresponding to ment 
the two consuls and other officials. This Roman system of 



56 


Ancient Times in Europe 


city government descended to the Middle Ages and so passed 
over to our own day. 

A Roman poet once declared that “ captive Greece captured 
her conqueror rude.” He spoke truly. Roman culture, during 
Roman cul- « the last centuries of the republic and the early 
ture centuries of the empire, owed much to Greek cul¬ 

ture. Nevertheless, the Romans themselves made in time some 
noteworthy contributions to the higher life of man. They 
achieved preeminence in certain forms of architecture. The 
temples of Greece seem almost insignificant beside the stu¬ 
pendous structures — baths, amphitheaters, basilicas, aque¬ 
ducts — raised by Roman architects in every province. Their 
ability to build on so colossal a scale was due to the use of the 
round arch and the dome, devices that are still commonly em¬ 
ployed by modern architects. The Roman triumphal arches 
and columns are also.often imitated to-day. Roman literature, 
though based on Greek models, likewise has many excellencies. 
The writings of Cicero, the orator and essayist, of Vergil, Horace, 
and Ovid, the poets, and of Livy and Tacitus, the historians, 
measure not far below the Greek masterpieces. In the Middle 
Ages, when the literature of Greece was either neglected or for¬ 
gotten by the peoples of western Europe, that of Rome was still 
read and enjoyed. A knowledge of it forms even to-day an 
essential part of a “classical” education. 

Just as Alexander’s conquests, by uniting the Near East and 
Greece, produced a Hellenistic civilization, so now the expan- 
international- sion of Rome throughout the Mediterranean basin 
ization and beyond the Alps gave rise to a still wider 

civilization, which embraced much of Europe, with the adjacent 
parts of Asia and Africa. The Roman Empire contained from 
seventy-five to one hundred million people, at peace with one 
another, possessing the same rights of citizenship, obeying one 
law, speaking Latin in the West and Greek in the East, and 
bound together by trade, travel, and a common loyalty to the 
imperial government. Unconsciously, but none the less surely, 
local habits and manners, national religions and tongues, provin¬ 
cial institutions and customs, disappeared from the ancient 



GREEK TOMBSTONE 

The tombstones (stela), of which many specimens are extant, especially at Athens, must be included 
among the purest and most delicate productions of Greek art in the fourth century b.c. They are all 
the work of anonymous artists. The relief on the tombstone shown in the plate represents Orpheus, the 
poet and musician, bidding farewell to his wife Eurydice. The god Hermes, who conducts the dead to 
the lower world, stands at the left. 












TRIUMPH OF CONSTANTINE IN THE ROMAN FORUM, 312 a.d. 

A reconstruction by J. Btihlmann and Alex, von Wagner. The observer is supposed to be looking down into the Forum from the Capitoline Mount. 
The Colosseum is seen in the distance on the left, and on the right are the Palatine Palaces of the Caesars. The Arch of Septimius Severus is in the 
immediate foreground* 














Decline of the Roman Empire 


57 


world. Rome thus made a tremendous advance toward inter¬ 
nationalization, toward the formation of a society embracing 
civilized mankind. 

13 . Decline of the Roman Empire 

The first two centuries of the Roman Empire, beginning with 
the reign of Augustus, formed an era of peace and material 
prosperity such as had never been known before The “ fall ” of 
in the ancient world, at any rate in Europe. The Rome 
inhabitants of the empire, during these centuries, did not try 
to overthrow it or to withdraw from its protection. They be¬ 
lieved that it would endure forever—■“Eternal Rome.” But 
the empire was not eternal. It grew weaker, as time went on, 
and offered less and less resistance to the German barbarians 
encroaching on the northern frontiers. When in the year 476 
the barbarians in Italy deposed Romulus Augustulus (“the 
little Augustus”), whose name, curiously enough, recalled that 
of the legendary founder of Rome and that of its first em¬ 
peror, there was no longer any Roman emperor ruling in 
western Europe. Barbarian kingdoms had now been set up, 
not only in Italy, but also in North Africa, Spain, Gaul, 
and Britain. This outcome is often described as the “fall” 
of Rome. 

To speak of the “fall” of Rome suggests the idea of a violent 
catastrophe which suddenly plunged the empire into ruin. The 
truth is, rather, that the breakdown of the im- Meaning of 
perial government was a gradual process, which the “ fall ” of 
lasted several hundred years. Rome was a long Rome 
time falling. Nor had all of the empire fallen by the end of the 
fifth century. The barbarians never made much impression 
on that part of its territory lying in eastern Europe. Here the 
empire, with a capital at Constantinople, 1 survived for centuries 
and upheld the Roman tradition of law and order. It did not 
entirely disappear until the year 1453, when Constantinople 
was captured by the Ottoman Turks. 

1 Founded in 328-330 by the emperor Constantine, on the site of the old Greek 
colony of Byzantium. 


58 


Ancient Times in Europe 


Why could not this great Roman empire keep the Germans 
at bay and prevent them from occupying western Europe? 
Political Many reasons have been given for its failure to 

weakness of do so. We may point out, first, that the empire 
the empire embraced too wide a territory for its efficient man¬ 
agement. It was so big as to be unwieldy. A single emperor, 
however able and energetic, had more than he could do to rule 
all of it and protect the distant frontiers. Second, the empire 
contained too many diverse peoples, for its real unification. 
There existed between them no unity of language, religion, or 
customs, which enables the inhabitants of a modern nation to 
cooperate for common ends. Third, the empire made no pro¬ 
vision for local self-government. As time went on, nearly all 
power was concentrated in the hands of the emperor and his 
officials. He assessed the taxes, framed edicts having the force 
of laws, and acted as the supreme judge. He took the title of 
“Lord and God” and required his subjects to pay him divine 
honors both in life and after death. His diadem of pearls, his 
purple robe, his scepter, all proclaimed the autocrat, and have 
furnished models for imitation by European sovereigns even to 
the present day. It is easy to see that under such circumstances 
there could be no genuine patriotism. Slaves and serfs had never 
enjoyed any political rights, and now even Roman citizens took 
no part in the affairs of state. They were required simply to 
pay taxes and obey the officials whom the emperor set over them. 
The old Graeco-Roman ideal of democracy, which had meant 
so much for civilization, was destroyed by the imperial system. 
The inhabitants of the empire looked to their all-powerful ruler 
to protect them; when he failed to do so, they could not, or 
would not, protect themselves. The barbarians entered the 
empire to find a spiritless, servile people, who seldom opposed, 
and indeed often welcomed, their coming. 

There were still other reasons for the “fall” of Rome. The 
Economic population of the empire seems to have much les- 
weakness of sened during these centuries, partly because of an 
the empire increased death-rate, due to the prevalence of 
malaria and plagues, but chiefly as the result of a decreased 


Decline of the Roman Empire 


59 


birth-rate. Men and women, finding it more and more diffi¬ 
cult to make a living, did not marry; or, if they married, they 
had few children, perhaps none at all. The custom of infanti¬ 
cide was likewise very common, especially among the poorer 
classes. The empire suffered from want of men to serve as sol¬ 
diers in the armies, as artisans in the workships, and as peasants 
on the farms. It is no wonder, therefore, that in province after 
province large tracts of land went out of cultivation, that the 
towns decayed, and that there was a general “slump” in com¬ 
merce, manufacturing, and other forms of business enterprise. 
“Hard times” settled on the Roman world. The empire also 



Terra-Cotta Savings Bank 


suffered from want of money. To meet the heavy cost of the 
luxurious court, to pay the salaries of the swarms of public 
officials, and to feed and amuse the idlers in the great cities 
involved a heavy expenditure. Taxes were harder to collect, 
now that both population and production had so seriously fallen 
off. The harshest measures were adopted to wring from the 
wretched subjects every penny that could possibly be paid. 
They came to dread the visits of the taxgatherers even more 
than the inroads of the barbarians. 

The Graeco-Romans did much for art, literature, philosophy, 
and science in earlier ages, but their creative ability intellectual 
had now been exhausted. Fewer great works of stagnation 
art were produced. Fewer great books were written. Interest 




6o 


Ancient Times in Europe 


in the higher things of the mind slackened, ignorance be¬ 
came widespread, and superstitions multiplied. The intel¬ 
lectual stagnation was far more pronounced in western Europe 
than in eastern Europe, because the barbarian invaders of the 
West were so rude and backward themselves, whereas in the 
East the Roman Empire always preserved many elements of 
classical culture. 

Even before the rise of Christianity Greeks and Romans had 
found it hard to believe in deities who were fashioned like them- 
Decay of selves and who possessed all the faults of mortal 
paganism men an d WO men. The growth of philosophy pro¬ 
duced among the educated much skepticism regarding the 
gods, the myths, and the rites and ceremonies accepted by their 
forefathers. The uneducated shared also in the prevailing 
skepticism. For the satisfaction of their religious needs people 
began to turn to new cults which came in from the Near East, 
such as the worship of the Persian sun god Mithra and the Egyp¬ 
tian goddess Isis. These Oriental cults all appealed to the emo¬ 
tions as the ancient paganism had never done. They provided 
an inspiring ritual and they offered to their devotees the promise 
of a happier existence beyond the grave. It is not strange, 
therefore, that they penetrated every province of the empire, 
only disappearing with the triumph of Christianity. 

14 . Christianity and Its Influence 

Christianity rose among the Jews, for Jesus 1 was a Jew and 
his disciples were Jews. The first Christians did not neglect 
Rise of Chris- to keep up the customs of the Jewish religion. It 
tianity was even doubted for a time whether any but Jews 

could properly be allowed within the Christian fold. A new 
convert, Saul of Tarsus, afterward the Apostle Paul, did most 
to admit the Gentiles, or pagans, to the privileges of the new 
religion. Though born a Jew, Paul had been trained in the 
schools of Tarsus, a city of Asia Minor which was a center of 
Greek learning. His education thus helped to make him an 

1 Bom probably in 4 b.c., during the reign of Augustus; crucified during the reign 
of Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judaea. 



6i 















































































62 


Ancient Times in Europe 


acceptable missionary to Greek-speaking peoples. During 
more than thirty years of activity Paul established churches 
in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and Italy. He wrote to 
these churches the letters (epistles) which have a place in the 
New Testament and set forth many doctrines of the Christian 
faith. 

Christianity spread rapidly over the Roman world. It was 
carried, as the other Oriental religions had been carried, by 
spread of slaves, soldiers, traders, travelers, and missionaries. 
Christianity The use of Greek and Latin as the common lan¬ 
guages of the Roman Empire furnished a medium in which 
Christian speakers and writers could be readily understood. 
The early missionaries, such as Paul himself, were often Roman 
citizens, who enjoyed the protection of Roman law and profited 
by the ease of travel which the imperial rule had made possible. 
Moreover, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the 
year 70 and the subsequent exile of Jews from Palestine spread 
the Chosen People throughout the Roman Empire, where they 
familiarized the pagans with Jewish ideals of monotheism and 
moral purity and with Jewish hopes for a Messiah, thus prepar¬ 
ing the way for Christianity. At no other period in ancient 
history were conditions so favorable for the growth of a world 
religion. 

The imperial government, which had treated other foreign 
faiths with careless indifference, or even with favor, which had 
The persecu- tolerated the Jews and granted to them special 
tions privileges of worship, made a deliberate effort to 

crush Christianity. The reason was that it seemed to threaten 
the existence of the state. Converts to the new religion con¬ 
demned the official paganism as idolatrous and they refused to 
swear by pagan gods in courts of law. Nor would they worship 
the genius (guardian spirit) of the emperor or burn incense before 
his statue, which stood in every town. To do so would have 
been an acknowledgment of the divinity of the emperor — some¬ 
thing impossible for Christians. Naturally, the Christians 
were outlawed and from time to time were subjected to persecu¬ 
tions in various parts of the empire. The last persecution, 



THE ANTIOCH CHALICE 
(International copyright by Kouchakji Freres, New York) 

In 1910 a.d., Arabs at Antioch in Syria excavated a silver chalice, about eight inches in 
height, which seems to date from the first century of our era. It probably formed a part of 
church treasure. This object is of extraordinary interest, for many, if not all, of the figures 
of the disciples adorning it are considered to be actual portraits and to have been made when 
most of the personages represented were alive. The illustration above shows Christ the 
Saviour (center), with St. Peter (left) and St. Paul (right). 

































































































* 























































































































Christianity and Its Influence 63 

early in the fourth century, was the most severe. It continued 
for eight years, but failed to shake the constancy of the Chris¬ 
tians. They welcomed the torture and death which would 
gain for them a heavenly crown. Those who perished were 
called “martyrs,” that is, “witnesses” to Christ. 

The imperial government at length realized the uselessness of 
the persecutions, and in 313 Constantine and his colleague, 
Licinius, issued the Edict of Milan, which pro- Triumph of 
claimed for the first time in history the principle of Christianity 
religious toleration. This edict placed Christianity on a legal 
equality with the other religions of the empire. Constantine 
himself accepted Christianity and favored it throughout his 
reign. Under his direction the first general council of the 
Church assembled in 325 at Nicaea in Asia Minor to settle a 
dispute over the nature of Christ. The council framed the 
Nicene Creed, which is still the accepted summary of Christian 
doctrine. Christianity continued to progress after Constan¬ 
tine and became the state religion by the close of the fourth 
century. Sacrifices to the pagan gods were henceforth for¬ 
bidden, the temples closed, the Delphic oracle and Olympian 
games forbidden, and even the private worship of ancestors 
prohibited. 

The old pagan religions made few moral demands upon their 
followers. A man who was pious and reverent toward the gods 
might be very immoral, indeed, in his relations Moral teach _ 
with his fellow men. Christianity, which taught ings of Chris- 
men to love God, taught them also to love their tiamty 
neighbors. It dwelt upon the sanctity of human life and con¬ 
demned the very common practice of suicide, as well as the 
frightful evil of infanticide. It set its face against all forms 
of cruelty, such as the gladiatorial combats, in which slaves, 
captives, and criminals were compelled to fight with one another 
and kill one another for the amusement of the spectators. It 
denounced, unsparingly, the luxury and vice of the great cities. 
In general, Christianity did much to soften and refine manners 
by the stress which it laid upon the “ Christian ” virtues of humil¬ 
ity, tenderness, and mercy. 


64 


Ancient Times in Europe 


The Christian belief in the fatherhood of God implied a cor¬ 
responding belief in the brotherhood of man. This doctrine 
Social teach- h uman equality had been expressed many times 
ings of Chris- by ancient philosophers, but Christianity translated 
their precepts into practice. It sought to improve 
the condition of the slave by requiring his master to treat him 
as a brother, and it opened the offices and dignities of the church 
to both alike. It declared that free and unfree were equal in 
God’s sight, and by encouraging emancipation it even helped 
to decrease slavery. Christianity, whose founder had worked 
as a carpenter, naturally emphasized the dignity of manual 
toil. For Christians idleness, not work, was the real disgrace: 
“to labor is to pray” became a Christian motto. The new 
religion laid much stress on benevolence as a duty and therefore 
supported all institutions to relieve the poor, the sick, and the 
downtrodden. It also elevated the position of women, by mak¬ 
ing marriage a religious sacrament, instead of a mere civil con¬ 
tract, by opposing divorce, and by insisting upon purity of life 
for both men and women. Christianity, we see, was not simply 
a set of beliefs, or a system of church organization, or a beauti¬ 
ful and impressive ritual of worship. The new religion, from 
the start, became a mighty influence for the betterment 
of mankind. 


15 . The German Invasions and Their Results 

The region called Germany {Germania) in antiquity reached 
from the Rhine eastward as far as the Vistula and from the 
Germany Danube northward to the Baltic Sea. Germany 
consisted of dense forests, extensive marshes, and 
sandy plains, incapable of supporting a large population. 
Clouds and mists enveloped the country in summer, and in 
winter it lay buried under snow and ice. Such unfavorable 
conditions retarded the development of Germany, which was 
also shut out from the Mediterranean basin by mountain 
barriers. The inhabitants, therefore, had not advanced in 
civilization as far as the Greeks and Romans. 

The Germans belonged principally to the Baltic (Nordic) 


The German Invasions and Their Results 65 


racial type. 1 Their tall stature, blue eyes, and blonde or ruddy 
hair marked them off from the shorter and darker Mediterranean 
peoples. They spoke a Teutonic language, re- inhabitants of 
lated, on the one hand, to Greek and Latin and, on Germany 
the other hand, to the Celtic, Lettic, and Slavic tongues. 2 In 
culture they were barbarians, who had passed from the use of 
stone and bronze to that of iron; who hunted, fished, kept 
cattle, and tilled the soil; who formed tribes and tribal con¬ 
federations; and who lived in villages or small towns. Some 
of the Germans nearest the Romans learned from the latter to 



Romans Destroying a German Village 

Relief on the Column of Marcus Aurelius, Rome. 


read and write, to make better weapons and clothes, to use 
money, to enjoy foreign luxuries, and, what was most impor¬ 
tant, to accept Christianity. The common religion of Germans 
and Romans paved the way for friendly relations between them. 

The Roman Empire had long been full of Germans. Many 
were mercenaries in the imperial army. Augustus The Germans 
began the practice of hiring them as soldiers, and and the 
by the time of Constantine they formed the ma- Romans 
jority of the troops. The emperors also admitted friendly tribes 

1 See page 27. 2 See page 29. 




















66 


Ancient Times in Europe 


of Germans within the frontiers to fill up the gaps in popula¬ 
tion and to farm the waste lands. Still other Germans entered 
the empire as slaves. The result was a very considerable 
“ barbarization ” of the Roman world before the period of in¬ 
vasions. 

The love of fighting for its own sake, the desire for adventure, 
and the lust for booty explain, in part, the German invasions. 
The inva- But on ^ P art - The invasions were principally 
sions: their due to land hunger. When the soil of Germany, 
as people then understood how to use it, could 
no longer sustain increasing numbers, the inhabitants had the 
alternative of migration or starvation. It was the same grim 
alternative that has confronted man at every stage of savagery, 
barbarism, and civilization. The Germans chose to migrate, 
even though that meant war, and so from the time of Julius 
Caesar not a century passed without witnessing some dangerous 
movement by them against the frontiers of the Roman Empire. 

The invasions were of two types. Sometimes entire peoples 
migrated, as was the case with the Visigoths (West Goths), 
The inva- Ostrogoths (East Goths), Vandals, Burgundians, 
sions: their and Lombards. They all settled among a much 
more numerous subject population, which in time 
absorbed them. None of their kingdoms proved to be enduring. 
Sometimes, again, bands of warriors, led by military chiefs, 
set out from their home land and conquered possessions at the 
expense of the provincials. Such was especially the case with 
the Franks in the northern part nf Gaul and the Anglo-Saxons 
in Britain. The Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were the 
only ones which developed into lasting states. 

Ancient civilization suffered a great shock when the Germans 
descended on the Roman Empire. These barbarians were rude 
German in- manners > were very ignorant, and had littl^ 

fluence on taste for anything except warfare and bodily en- 
society joyments. They were unlike the provincials in 

dress and habits of life. They lived under different laws, spoke 
different languages, and obeyed different rulers. They some¬ 
times destroyed Roman cities and killed or enslaved the inhab- 


























































































The German Invasions and Their Results 67 

itants. Even when they settled peaceably within the empire, 
they allowed aqueducts, bridges, and roads to go without re¬ 
pairs, and theaters, baths, and public buildings to sink into ruins. 
Being devoted chiefly to agriculture, they permitted both 
industry and commerce to languish. Lacking any appreciation 
of education, they failed to keep up schools, universities, and 
libraries. Ancient civilization had been declining before the 
Germans came. The invasions accelerated the decline, with 
the result that large parts of western Europe relapsed for 
several centuries into semi-barbarism. 

Nevertheless, the Germans had the capacity to learn, and 
the willingness to learn, from those whom they had conquered. 
Their fusion with the Romans was helped by the Fusion of 
previous settlement within the empire of so many Germans and 
German soldiers, colonists, and slaves. It was Romans 
very greatly helped by the fact that some of the principal peoples, 
including the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, 
and Lombards, were already Christians at the time of their 
invasions, while other peoples, including the Franks and Anglo- 
Saxons, afterward adopted Christianity. Finally, as observed 
above, the Germans invaded the empire to seek homes for them¬ 
selves, rather than simply to pillage and destroy. They ac¬ 
cepted what they understood of classical culture and then 
imparted to the enfeebled provincials their fresh blood, youthful 
minds, and vigorous, progressive life. The fusion of Germans 
and Romans formed the great work of the early Middle Ages 
in western Europe. 

Studies 

1. “In many respects Europe may be considered the most favored among the 
continents.” Explain this statement in detail. 2. “The history of the Mediter¬ 
ranean, from the days of Phoenicia, Crete, and Greece to our own time, is a history 
of Western civilized mankind.” Comment on this statement. 3. Why have Greek 
colonies been called “patches of Hellas”? 4. How far can the expression “govern¬ 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people” be applied to the Athenian 
democracy? 5. Mention some of the noteworthy contributions of ancient Greece 
to the higher life of man. 6. Show that the founding of Hellenistic cities formed a 
renewal of Greek colonial expansion. 7. “The seed-ground of European civiliza¬ 
tion is neither Greece nor the Orient, but a world joined of the two.” Comment 
on this statement. 8. Why have Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica been called the 


68 


Ancient Times in Europe 


“ suburbs ” of Italy ? Which island does not belong to the present Italian kingdom ? 
9. Compare the nature of Roman rule in Italy with that of Athens over the Delian 
League. 10. How do you account for the failure of the republican institutions of 
Rome? 11. What modem countries are included within the limits of the Roman 
Empire at its greatest extent? 12. Trace on the map between pages 52 and 53 
the principal Roman roads in the provinces. 13. Compare the Romanization of 
the ancient world with the process of Americanization now going on in the United 
States. 14. Define the terms “absolution” and “centralization” as applied to the 
later Roman Empire. 15. What reasons may be given for the conversion of the 
Roman world to Christianity? 16. Why had the Germans progressed more slowly 
than the Greeks and the Romans? 17. Why is modem civilization, unlike that 
of antiquity, in little danger from barbarians? 18. In what sense does the date 
476 mark the “fall” of the Roman Empire? 



A Roman Freight Ship 


The ship lies beside the wharf at Ostia. In the after¬ 
part of the vessel is a cabin with two windows. Notice the 
figure of Victory on the top of the single mast and the deco : 
ration of the mainsail with the wolf and twins. The ship 
is steered by a pair of huge paddles. 












CHAPTER III 


MEDIEVAL TIMES IN EUROPE 1 
16 . The Early Middle Ages 

The Middle Ages, as the term indicates, lie between ancient 
times and modern times. They include only the history of 
western Europe. There was no medieval period Period of the 
in eastern Europe, where the Byzantine (Roman) Middle Ages 
Empire, with a center at Constantinople, still survived and pre¬ 
served part of the territory and some of the culture of old Rome. 
There was no medieval period in the Near East, which had come 
under the sway of the Mohammedan Arabs. The Arab do¬ 
minions also embraced, for a time, both Spain and Sicily. In 
these European lands the Arabs created a brilliant culture, to 
which their Christian neighbors were much indebted. Nor was 
there a medieval period in the Far East, for some of the darkest 
centuries of western Europe were the brightest centuries of 
India and China. 

The Middle Ages are not well defined, as to either their be¬ 
ginning or their end. For an initial date we have selected the 
year 476, when the Roman provinces in western Limits of the 
Europe were almost wholly occupied by the Ger- Middle Ages 
mans. For concluding dates historians have taken those of 
the invention of printing (about 1450), the capture of Constanti¬ 
nople by the Ottoman Turks (1453), the discovery of America 
(1492), the opening of a new sea-route to the East Indies (1498), 
and the commencement of the Protestant Reformation (1517). 
Such significant events in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
seem to mark the end of medieval times. These two centuries 
have such importance, however, that it will be convenient for 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter iii, “The Benedic¬ 
tine Rule”; chapter xi, “St. Francis and the Franciscans”; chapter xviii, “Three 
Medieval Epics.” 

69 


70 


Medieval Times in Europe 


our purpose to deal with them in a separate chapter and to treat 
them as marking the transition to the modern world. No pre¬ 
cise dates, indeed, separate one historic epoch from another. 
The truth is that the social life of man forms a continuous 
growth, and man’s history, an uninterrupted stream. 

The early Middle Ages formed in western Europe an era of 
turmoil, ignorance, and decline, consequent upon the barbarian 
Divisions of invasions. It required a long time for the Ger- 
the Middle mans and other Teutonic peoples to settle in 
Ages their new homes and to become thoroughly fused 

with the Romanized provincials. The process of absorption 
was practically completed by the end of the tenth "century. 
Western Europe then entered upon the later Middle Ages, an 
era of more settled government, increasing knowledge, and 
steady progress in almost every field of human activity. The 
medieval period thus presents to the historical eye not a level 
stretch of nine hundred to a thousand years, with mankind sta¬ 
tionary, but rather first a downward and then an upward slope. 

During the fifth century, when the Germans were wandering 
almost at will over the territories of the Roman Empire, a Ger- 
The kingdom man people known as the Franks carved out pos- 
of the Franks sessions for themselves in Gaul, accepted Roman 
Catholicism, and gradually built up a large and strong state in 
western Europe. During the eighth century they helped to 
keep Europe Christian by beating back the Arabs, who, having 
conquered the Visigoths in Spain, invaded Gaul and threatened 
to make that country also a Mohammedan land. It was a 
Frankish king who created a Christian and German empire to 
replace the empire of Rome. This king was Charles the Great, 
or Charlemagne. 1 

Much of Charlemagne’s reign (768-814) was filled with war¬ 
fare. He conquered the Lombards, who had taken Italy from 
Charle- the Ostrogoths. He invaded Spain and wrested 

magne’s con- from the Arabs a considerable district south of the 
quests Pyrenees. His long struggle with the Saxons and 

various Slavic peoples farther widened the Frankish dominions. 

1 The French form of his name, from the Latin Carolus Magnus. 



bu rg u 












































































■ 







' 













' 

; ' 

































































































The Early Middle Ages 


7 1 


Charlemagne at the height of his power ruled over what is now 
France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, western Ger¬ 
many, northern Italy, and northern Spain, besides a part of 
Czecho-Slovakia and Jugoslavia. In this truly gigantic realm 
all the surviving Teutonic peoples, except those in Denmark, 
Norway, Sweden, and Britain, 
were brought under the sway 
of one man. 

Charlemagne, the foremost 
ruler in Europe, seemed to the 
men of his time T he empire of 
the rightful sue- Charlemagne 
cessor of the Roman emperors. 

He had their power, and now 
he was to have their name. On 
Christmas Day, 800, the pope, 
in old St. Peter’s Church at 
Rome, placed on his head a 
golden crown, while all the peo¬ 
ple cried out'with one voice, 

“Long life and victory to 
Charles Augustus, the great and 
pacific emperor of the Romans, 
crowned by God !” The coro¬ 
nation of Charlemagne was re¬ 
garded by his contemporaries as 
the restoration or renewal of the Roman Empire, more than 
three hundred years after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus. 
Charlemagne’s empire, however, did not include North Africa, 
Britain, or much of Spain, or the Roman dominions in eastern 
Europe. It did include, on the other hand, extensive territories 
east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, which the Romans 
had never been able to conquer. Furthermore, the German 
Charlemagne and his German successors on the imperial throne 
had little in common with the old Roman emperors, who spoke 
Latin, administered Roman law, and regarded the Germans as 
thek most dangerous foes. Charlemagne’s empire was, indeed, 



Charlemagne 


Lateran Museum, Rome 
A mosaic picture made during the lifetime 
of Charlemagne, and probably a fair likeness 
of him. 






















72 


Medieval Times in Europe 


largely a new creation, the result of an alliance between the 
Frankish kingdom and the Papacy. 

The imperial idea was revived, about one hundred and fifty 
years after Charlemagne’s death, by an able German ruler, 
The Holy Ro- Otto I, often called Otto the Great. Otto led his 
man Empire armies across the Alps, went to Rome, and had the 
pope crown him as Roman emperor (962). Otto’s dominions 



were considerably smaller than Charlemagne’s, since they in¬ 
cluded only Germany and North Italy. Nevertheless, Otto 
and the emperors who followed him asserted vast claims to 
sovereignty in Europe, as the heirs of Charlemagne and, through 
him, of Constantine and Augustus. The new empire came sub¬ 
sequently to be styled the Holy Roman Empire, the word Holy 
in its title expressing its intimate connection with the Papacy. 























The Early Middle Ages 


73 


It lived on in some measure for more than eight hundred years 
and did not quite disappear from European politics until the 
opening of the nineteenth century. 

The successors of Otto the Great constantly interfered in the 
affairs of Italy, in order to secure the Italian crown and the 
imperial title. They treated that country as a Germany and 
conquered province which had no right to a na- Italy in the 
tional life and an independent government under Mlddle Ages 
its own rulers. At the same time, they neglected their German 
possessions and failed to keep their powerful territorial lords in 
subjection. Neither Italy nor Germany, in consequence^ be¬ 
came a united state, such as was formed in England, France, 
Spain, and other countries during the later Middle Ages. 

The ninth and tenth centuries in western Europe witnessed 
new barbarian invasions, especially those of the Northmen, or 
Vikings. These Teutonic peoples lived, as their Raids of the 
descendants still live, in Denmark, Norway, and Northmen 
Sweden. The same land hunger which drove the German tribes 
southward made them quit their bleak, sterile country and seek 
new homes across the water. The invasions of the Northmen 
may be regarded, therefore, as the second wave of that great 
Teutonic movement which had previously inundated western 
Europe and overwhelmed the Roman Empire. The Northmen 
were barbarous and heathen, untouched either by Graeco-Roman 
culture or by the Christian religion. They started out as raiders 
and fell on the coasts of western Europe. They also found it 
easy to ascend the rivers in their shallow boats and reach places 
far inland. Their attacks did so much damage and inspired 
such great terror that a special prayer was inserted in the church 
services: “From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, de¬ 
liver us.” 

The Northmen eventually colonized many of the lands which 
they visited. The accompanying map shows their extensive 
discoveries and settlements, together with the Settlements of 
dates (principally in the ninth and tenth centuries) the Northmen 
when these were made. The British Isles, Iceland, Finland, and 
Russia all received a considerable immigration of Northmen. 


North Cape 



74 


Discoveries and Settlements of the Northmen 
























































Feudalism 


75 


They also crossed the Atlantic to Greenland. Some of them 
even voyaged farther westward and reached the New World 
five hundred years before Columbus. The Northmen who oc¬ 
cupied northwestern France came to be known as Normans. 1 
One of the dukes of Normandy, the famous William the Con¬ 
queror, invaded England in 1066 and speedily added that coun¬ 
try to his dominions. The Normans also turned southward to 
the Mediterranean and founded in southern Italy and Sicily the 
so-called kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Norman rulers held it 
for only about a hundred and fifty years, but under other rulers 
it lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the 
present kingdom of Italy came into existence. The conquests 
of the Normans in England, Italy, and Sicily were effected after 
they had become a Christian and a French-speaking people. 

17 . Feudalism 

Charlemagne for a time had arrested the disintegration of 
society which resulted from the invasions of the Germans, and 
had united their warring tribes under something Decline of the 
like a centralized government. But Charlemagne’s royal author- 
empire did not long survive its founder. It soon lty 
broke up into separate kingdoms. The successors of Charle¬ 
magne in France, Germany, and Italy enjoyed little real author¬ 
ity. They reigned, but did not rule. During this dark age it 
was. really impossible for a king to govern with a strong hand. 
The absence of good roads or of other easy means of communica¬ 
tion made it difficult for him to move troops quickly from one 
district to another, in order to quell revolts. Even had good 
roads existed, the lack of ready money would have prevented 
him from maintaining a strong army devoted to his interests. 
Moreover, the king’s subjects, as yet not welded into a nation, 
felt toward him no sentiments of loyalty and affection. They 
cared far less for their king, of whom they knew little, than for 
their own local lords, who dwelt near them. 

The decline of the royal authority meant that the chief func¬ 
tions of government came to be more and more performed by 
1 “Norman” is a softened form of “Northmen.” 


76 


Medieval Times in Europe 


the nobles, who were the great landowners of the kingdom. 
Under Charlemagne these men had been the king’s officials, 
increased appointed by him and holding office at his pleasure, 
power of the Under his successors they tended to become almost 
independent princes. In proportion as this change 
was accomplished during the Middle Ages, European society 
entered upon the stage of feudalism . 1 

The basis of feudal society was usually the landed estate. 
Here lived the feudal noble, surrounded by dependents over 
Feudal which he exercised the rights of a petty sovereign, 

sovereignty He could tax them; he could require them to give 
him military assistance; he could try them in his courts. A 
great noble even enjoyed the privilege of declaring war, making 
treaties, and coining money. How, it will be asked, did these 
rights and privileges arise? 

Owing to the decay of commerce and industry, land had be¬ 
come practically the only form of wealth in the early Middle 
Feudal tenure Ages. The king, who was regarded as the absolute 
of land owner of the soil, would pay his officials for their 

services by giving them the use of a certain amount of land. 
In the same way, one who had received large estates would parcel 
them out among his followers, as a reward for their support. 
An unscrupulous noble might sometimes seize the lands of his 
neighbors and compel them to become his tenants. Sometimes, 
too, those who owned land in their own right might surrender 
the title to it in favor of a noble, who then became their protector. 
An estate in land which a person held of a superior lord, on con¬ 
dition of performing some “honorable” service, was called a fief. 
A fief was inheritable, going at the holder’s death to his oldest 
son. If a man had no legal heir, the fief went back to the lord. 

The tie which bound the tenant who accepted a fief to the 
lord who granted it was called vassalage. Every holder of land 
Vassalage was * n th eor y> though not always in fact, the vassal 
of some lord. At the apex of the feudal pyramid 
stood the king, the supreme landlord, who was supposed to hold 

1 The word come from the medieval Latin feudum, from which are derived the 
French^/ and the English fee. 


Feudalism 


77 


his land from God; below the king stood the greater lords 
(dukes, marquises, counts, barons), with large estates; and 



Possessions of the Count of Champagne 

(i 2TH Century) 


below them came the lesser lords, or knights, whose possessions 
were considered to be too small for further subdivision. 

The vassal owed various services to the lord. In time of war 
he did garrison duty at the lord’s castle and joined him in 






































































78 


Medieval Times in Europe 


military expeditions. In time of peace the vassal attended the 
lord on ceremonial occasions, gave him the benefit of his ad- 
Duties of vice, w h en necessary, and helped him as a judge 
vassal and in trying cases. The vassal, under certain circum¬ 
stances, was also required to make money pay¬ 
ments. The lord, in return, agreed to secure the vassal in the 
enjoyment of his fief, to guard him against his enemies, and to 
see that in all matters he received just treatment. 

The feudal tenure of land, coupled with the custom of vas¬ 
salage, made in some degree for security and order. Each noble 
Feudalism a was Cached to the lord above him by the bond of 
form of local personal service and the oath of fealty. To his 
government vassa i s beneath him he was at once protector, 
benefactor, and friend. Feudal obligations, of course, were not 
always observed. Both lords and vassals often broke their 
engagements, when it seemed profitable to do so. They had 
many quarrels and indulged in constant warfare. Feudalism, 
despite its defects, was better than anarchy. The feudal nobles 
drove back the pirates and hanged the brigands and enforced 
the laws, as no feeble king could do. Feudalism provided a 
rude form of local government for a rude society. 

The outward mark of feudalism was the castle, where the lord 
resided and from which he ruled his fief. Defense formed the 
primary purpose of the castle. Until the introduc¬ 
tion of gunpowder and cannon, the only siege 
weapons employed were those known in ancient times. They 
included machines for hurling heavy stones and iron bolts, 
battering rams, and movable towers, from which the besiegers 
crossed over to the walls. Such engines could best be used on 
firm, level ground. Consequently, a castle would often be 
erected on a high cliff or hill, or on an island, or in the center of 
a swamp. A castle without such natural defenses would be sur¬ 
rounded by a deep ditch (the “moat”)> usually filled with water. 
If the besiegers could not batter down or undermine the massive 
walls, they adopted the slower method of a blockade and tried 
to starve the garrison into surrendering. Ordinarily, however, 
a well-built, well-provisioned castle was impregnable. 


The castle 


Feudalism 


79 


The nobles regarded the right of waging war on one another 
as their most cherished privilege. A, vassal might fight with each 
of the various lords to whom he had done homage, Private war- 
in order to secure independence from them, with fare 
bishops and abbots whom he disliked for any reason, with his 
weaker fellow vassals, and even with his own vassals. Fighting 
became almost a form of business enterprise, which enriched 
the nobles and their retainers through the sack of castles, 
the plunder of villages, and 
the ransom of prisoners. 

Every hill became a strong¬ 
hold and every plain, a 
battle-field. As the power 
of the kings increased in 
western Europe, they natu¬ 
rally sought to put an end 
to the constant fighting be¬ 
tween their subjects. The 
Norman rulers of Nor¬ 
mandy, England, and the 
Two Sicilies restrained their 
turbulent nobles with a 
strong hand. Peace came 
later in most parts of the 
Continent; in Germany, 

“fist right” (the rule of the 
strongest) prevailed until 
the end of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury. The abolition of private warfare was the first step in Eu¬ 
rope toward universal peace. The second step — the abolition 
of public war between nations — is yet to be taken. 

The prevalence of private warfare made the use of arms a 
profession requiring special training. A nobleman’s son served 
for a number of years as a squire in his father’s „ . , . , 

1 • , ' r 1 1 1 TT71 1 Knighthood 

castle or in that of some other lord. When he 

became of age and had been drilled in warlike exercises, he might 

be made a knight. The ceremony of conferring knighthood 



Champions Fighting 


A form of trial used in feudal times was the 
judicial duel. The accuser and the accused 
fought with each other, and the conqueror won the 
case. When one of the adversaries could not 
fight, he 'secured a champion to take his place. 
The picture reproduced above is from a thirteenth- 
century tile found on the site of Chertsey Abbey, 
England. 


8o 


Medieval Times in Europe 


was often most elaborate. If, however, a squire for valorous 
conduct received knighthood on the battle-field, the accolade by 
stroke of the sword formed the only ceremony. 

As manners softened and Christian teachings began to affect 
feudal society, knighthood developed into chivalry. The 
Church, which opposed the warlike excesses of feu¬ 
dalism, took the knight under her wing and bade 
him be always a true soldier of Christ. The “good knight” was 

he who respected his sworn 
word, who never took an 
unfair advantage of an¬ 
other, who defended wo¬ 
men, children, and orphans 
against their oppressors, 
and who sought to make 
justice and right prevail in 
the world. Needless to 
say, the “good knight” 
appears of tener in romance 
than in sober history. 
Chivalry produced some 
improvement in manners, 
particularly by insisting on 
the ideal of personal honor 
and by fostering greater regard for women (though only those 
of the upper class). Our modern notion of the conduct befitting 
a “gentleman” goes back in part to the old chivalric code. 
Chivalry expressed, however, simply the sentiments of the war¬ 
like nobles. It was an aristocratic institution. The knight de¬ 
spised and did his best to keep in subjection the toiling peasantry, 
upon whose backs rested the real burden of feudal society. 

18. The Church 

The most important civilizing influence in western Europe 
during the Middle Ages was the Roman Church. The Church 
performed a double task. On the one hand, it gave the people 
religious instruction and watched over their morals; on the 



Mounted Knight 

Seal of Robert Fitzwalter, showing a mounted 
knight in complete armor; date about 1265. 





The Church 


81 


other hand, it took an important part in secular affairs. Priests 
and monks were almost the only persons of education; conse¬ 
quently, they controlled the schools, wrote the The Church 
books, framed the laws, acted as royal ministers, and medieval 
and served as members of the Parliament or other clvlhzatl0n 
national assembly. The Church thus directed the higher life 
of a medieval community. 

The Church held spiritual sway throughout western Europe. 
Italy and Sicily, the larger part of Spain, France, Territorial 
the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, extent of 
Hungary, Poland, the British Isles, Denmark, the Church 
Sweden, Norway, and Iceland yielded obedience to the pope of 
Rome. 

Membership in the Church was not a matter of free choice. 
All people, except Jews, were required to belong to it. A 
person joined the Church by baptism, a rite usually The Church 
performed in infancy, and remained in it as long as as universal 
he lived. Every one was expected to conform, at least out¬ 
wardly, to the doctrines and practices of the Church, and any 
one attacking its authority was liable to punishment as a 
heretic. 

The existence of one Church in the western world furnished a 
bond of union between European peoples. The Church took 
no heed of political boundaries, for men of all The Church 
nationalities entered the ranks of the priesthood as inter- 
and joined the monastic orders. Priests and monks natlonal 
were subjects of no country, but were “citizens of heaven,” as 
they sometimes called themselves. Even differences of language 
counted for little in the Church, since Latin was the universal 
speech of the educated classes. One must think, then, of the 
Church as a great international organization, in form a monarchy, 
presided over by the pope, and with its center at Rome. 

The pope was the supreme lawgiver of the Church. His 
decrees might not be set aside by any other person. He made 
new laws in the form of “bulls” 1 and by his “dispensations” 
could in particular cases set aside old laws, such as those for- 

i So called from the lead seal (Latin bulla) attached to papal documents. 


82 


Medieval Times in Europe 


The cardinals 


bidding cousins to marry or monks to obtain release from their 
vows. The pope was also the supreme judge of the Church, for 
all appeals from the lower ecclesiastical courts came 
the 6 head of before him for decision. Finally, the pope was the 
western supreme administrator of the Church. He con¬ 
ns en om £ rme q t h e election of both bishops and archbishops, 
deposed them, when necessary, or transferred them from one 
diocese to another. The pope also exercised control over the 
monastic orders and called general councils of the Church. 

For assistance in government the pope made use of the cardi¬ 
nals, 1 who formed a board, or “ college.” They were chosen at 
first only from the clergy of Rome and the vicinity, 
but in course of time the pope opened the cardi- 
nalate to prominent churchmen in all countries. The number 
of cardinals is now fixed at seventy. 

To support the business of the Papacy and to maintain the 
splendor of the papal court required a large annual income, 
income of the This came partly from the pope’s lands in Italy, 
Papacy partly from the gifts of the faithful, and partly 

from the payments made by abbots, bishops, and archbishops 
when the pope confirmed their election to office. Another 
source of revenue consisted of “ Peter’s Pence,” a tax of a penny 
on each hearth. It was collected every year in England and in 
some Continental countries until the Reformation. The modern 
“Peter’s Pence” is a voluntary contribution made by Roman 
Catholics in all countries. 

The pope was a temporal sovereign, ruling over Rome and the 
States of the Church. These possessions included during the 
States of the Middle Ages the greater part of central Italy. 
Church The pope did not lose them altogether until the 

formation of the present Italian kingdom, in the second half 
of the nineteenth century. 

The work of the Church was carried on by the clergy, including 
deacons, parish priests, and bishops, who lived ac¬ 
tive lives in the world, and monks, who passed 
their days in seclusion behind monastery walls. Members of 
1 Latin cardinalis, “principal.” 


The clergy 


The Church 


83 


the clergy were distinguished from the laity by abstention from 
money-making activities, differences in dress, and the obliga¬ 
tion of celibacy. Being unmarried, the clergy had no family 
cares; being free from the necessity of earning their own living, 
they could devote all their time and energy to the service of the 
Church. The sacrament of ordination, which was believed to 
endow the clergy with divine power, also helped to strengthen 
their influence. They appeared as a distinct order, in whose 
charge was the care of souls and in whose hands were the keys 
of heaven. 

The earlier monks were hermits. They devoted themselves, 
as they believed, to the service of God, by retiring to the desert 
for prayer, meditation, and bodily mortification. ^ 

The need for social intercourse gradually brought 
the hermits together, at first in small groups and then in larger 
communities, or monasteries. The next step was to give the 
scattered monasteries a common organization and government. 
Those in western Christendom gradually adopted the regulations 
which St. Benedict (about 529) drew up for the guidance of his 
monastery at Monte Cassino in Italy. 

The monks obeying the Benedictine Rule formed a corpora¬ 
tion, presided over by an abbot, who held office for life. Every 
candidate for admission took the vow of obedience The Benedic- 
to the abbot. Any man, rich or poor, noble or tine Rule 
peasant, might enter the monastery after a year’s probation; 
having once joined, however, he must remain a monk for the 
rest of his days. The monks lived under strict discipline. They 
could not own any property; they could not go beyond the 
monastery walls without the abbot’s consent; and they fol¬ 
lowed a regular round of worship, reading from the Bible, 
private prayer, and meditation. The monks also worked 
hard with their hands, doing the necessary washing and 
cooking for the monastery, raising the necessary supplies of 
vegetables and grain, and performing all the other tasks re¬ 
quired to maintain a large establishment. This emphasis on 
labor, as a religious duty, was a characteristic feature of 
western monasticism. 


8 4 


Medieval Times in Europe 


The civilizing influence of the Benedictine monks during the 
early Middle Ages can scarcely be overemphasized. A monas- 
The monks as tery was often at once a model farm, an inn, a hos- 
civilizers pital, a school, and a library. The monks, by the 
careful cultivation of their lands, set an example of good farming 
wherever they settled. They entertained pilgrims and travelers 
at a period when western Europe was almost destitute of inns. 
They performed many works of charity, feeding the hungry, 

healing the sick who were 
brought to their doors, and 
distributing their medi¬ 
cines freely to those who 
needed them. They 
trained in their schools 
boys who intended to enter 
the ranks of the clergy. 
The monks, too, were the 
only scholars of the age. 
By copying the manu¬ 
scripts of classical authors, 
they preserved valuable 
books that would other¬ 
wise have been lost. By 
keeping records of the 
most striking events of 
their time, they acted as 
chroniclers of medieval history. The monks also served as 
missionaries among the heathen. 

The Benedictine system had its limitations. The monks 
lived apart from their fellow men and sought chiefly the salva- 

,. tion of their own souls. A new conception of the 

The friars ...... , 

religious me arose early m the thirteenth century, 

with the coming of the friars. 1 Their aim was social service. 

They devoted themselves to the salvation of others. The 

foundation of the orders of friars was the work of two men, St. 

Francis in Italy and St. Dominic in Spain. The Franciscans 

1 Latin Jrater, “brother.” 



A Monk Copyist 

From a manuscript in the British Museum, London. 































• The Church 


3 S 


and Dominicans resembled each other in many ways. They 
went on foot from place to place, and wore coarse robes tied 
round the waist with a rope. They possessed no property, but 
lived on the alms of the charitable. They were also preachers, 
who spoke to the people, not in Latin, but in the common lan¬ 
guage of each country which they visited. The Franciscans 
worked especially in the slums of the cities; the Dominicans 
addressed themselves rather to educated people and the upper 
classes. As time went on, both orders relaxed the rule of poverty 
and became very wealthy. They still survive, scattered all over 
the world and engaged in teaching and missionary activity. 

We may now consider the attitude of the Church toward the 
social and economic problems of the Middle Ages. In regard 
to private warfare, the prevalence of which formed The Church 
one of the greatest evils of the time, the Church, and warfare 
in general, cast its influence on the side of peace. It forbade 
attacks on all defenseless people, including priests, monks, 
pilgrims, merchants, peasants, and women. It also established 
a “Truce of God,” which required all men to cease fighting from 
Wednesday evening to Monday morning of each week, in Lent, 
and on various holy days. The truce would have given western 
Europe peace for about two thirds of the year, but it was never 
strictly observed, except in limited areas. 

The Church was distinguished for charitable work. It dis¬ 
tributed large sums to the needy. It also multiplied hospitals, 
orphanages, and asylums. Medieval charity, how- The Church 
ever, was very often injudicious. The problem of and chant y 
removing the causes of poverty seems never to have been raised ; 
and the indiscriminate giving multiplied, rather than reduced, 
the number of beggars. 

Neither slavery nor serfdom, into which slavery gradually 
passed, was ever pronounced unlawful by pope or Church coun¬ 
cil. The Church condemned slavery only when it The Church 
was the servitude of a Christian in bondage to and slavery 
a Jew or an infidel. Abbots, bishops, and popes and serfdom 
possessed slaves and serfs. The serfs of some wealthy monas¬ 
teries were counted by thousands. The Church, nevertheless, 


86 


Medieval Times in Europe 


encouraged the freeing of bondmen as a meritorious act and always 
preached the duty of kindness and forbearance toward them. 

The Church also helped to promote the cause of human free¬ 
dom by insisting on the natural equality of all men in the sight 
Democracy of of God. “The Creator/’ wrote one of the popes, 
the Church “distributes his gifts without regard to social 
classes. In his eyes there are neither nobles nor serfs.” The 
Church gave practical expression to this attitude by opening 
the priesthood and monastic orders to every one, whether high¬ 
born or low-born, whether rich or poor. 'Naturally enough, the 
Church attracted to its service the keenest minds of the age. 

19. Country Life 


Civilization has always had its home in the city. Nothing 
marks more strongly the backwardness of the early Middle Ages 
Decline of than the absence of the flourishing cities which had 
urban life filled western Europe under the Roman Empire. 
The barbarian invasions led to a gradual decay of manufacturing 
and commerce and hence of the cities in which those activities 
centered. As urban life declined, the mass of the population 
came to live more and more in isolated rural communities. This 
was the great economic feature of the early Middle Ages. 

An estate in land, when owned by a lord and occupied by 
dependent peasants, was called a manor. 1 It naturally varied in 
_ size according to the wealth of its lord. In Eng- 

land perhaps six hundred acres formed an average 
estate. Every noble had at least one manor; great nobles might 
have several manors, usually scattered throughout the country; 
and even the king depended upon his many manors for the 
food supply of the court. 

The lord reserved for his own use a part of the arable land of 
the manor. This was his “demesne,” or domain. The rest of 
Common cul- the ^ an< ^ he Plotted to the peasant^ who were his 
tivation of the tenants. They cultivated their holdings in corn- 
arable land mon> accorc p n g to t h e “open-field” system. A 

farmer, instead of having his land in one compact mass, had it 

1 From the Old French manoir, “mansion” (Latin manere, “to dwell”). 


Country Life 


87 


split up into a large number of small strips (usually an acre or a 
half-acre) scattered over the manor, and separated, not by fences 
or hedges, but by banks of unplowed turf. The appearance of 
a manor, when under cultivation, has been likened to a vast 
checkerboard or a patchwork quilt. The reason for the inter¬ 
mixture of strips seems to have been to make sure that each 
farmer had a portion both of the good land and of the bad. It 
is obvious that this arrangement compelled all the peasants to 
labor according to a common plan. A man had to sow the same 



Sulgrave Manor House 

Sulgrave, in Northhamptonshire, was the ancestral home of the Washington family. The 
manor house, built by Lawrence Washington about the middle of the sixteenth century, bears 
the family coat-of-arms on the porch. This historic dwelling has been purchased by an English 
committee for preservation as a memorial of the friendship and blood-relationship between 
England and the United States. 

kinds of crops as his neighbors, and to till and reap them at the 
same time. Agriculture, under such circumstances, could not 
fail to be unprogressive. 

Farmers did not know how to enrich the soil by the use of 
fertilizers and a proper rotation of crops. Consequently, they 
divided all the arable land into three parts, one of Farming 
wdiich was sown with wheat or rye, and another methods 
with oats or barley, while the third was allowed to lie fallow 
(uncultivated) for a year, so that it might recover its fertility. 
Eight or nine bushels of grain represented the average yield of 





88 


Medieval Times in Europe 


an acre. Farm animals were small, for scientific breeding had 
not yet begun. Farm implements, also, were few and clumsy. 
It took five men a day to reap and bind the harvest of two acres. 

Besides his holding of arable land, which in England averaged 
about thirty acres, each peasant had certain rights over the 
Common use non-arable land of the manor. He could cut a 
of the non- limited amount of hay from the meadow. He could 
arable land turn gQ man y f arm an j ma i s — cattle, geese, swine 

— on the waste. He also enjoyed the privilege of taking so 
much wood from the forest for fuel and building purposes. A 
peasant’s holding, which also included a house in the village, 
thus formed a complete outfit. 

The peasants on a manor lived close together in one or more 
villages. Their small, thatch-roofed, and one-roomed houses 
Description of were grouped about an open space (the “green”), 
a village or on both sides of a single, narrow street. The 
only important buildings were the parish church, the parsonage, 
a mill, if a stream ran through the manor, and possibly a black¬ 
smith’s shop. The population of one of these communities 
often did not exceed one hundred souls. 

The most striking feature of a medieval village was its self- 
sufficiency. The inhabitants tried to produce at home every- 
A village as thing they required, in order to avoid the uncer- 
self-sufficing tainty and expense of trade. The land gave them 
their food; the forest provided them with wood for houses 
and furniture. They made their own clothes of flax, wool, and 
leather. Their meal and flour were ground at the village mill, 
and at the village smithy their farm implements were manufac¬ 
tured. The chief articles which needed to be brought from 
some distant market included salt, used to salt down farm ani¬ 
mals killed in autumn, iron for various tools, and millstones. 
Cattle, horses, and surplus grain also formed common objects 
of exchange between manors. 

Life in a medieval village was rude and rough. The peasants 
Condition of labored from sunrise to sunset, ate coarse fare, lived 
the peasants i n huts, and suffered from frequent pestilences. 
If their lord happened to be a quarrelsome man, given to fight- 


Country Life 


89 



^ ' - y N "— *Z ^ v * v 

% Thp’ - /^/^ 1 • 'L 


The (Plan of a (hewing* 

a Viyaters holding in the (ermrrvon ivdfyj^ 




Plan or a Manor 



















90 


Medieval Times in Europe 


ing with his neighbors, they might see their land ravaged, their 
cattle driven off, and their village burned, and might themselves 
be slain. If, however, the peasants had a just and generous 
lord, they probably led a fairly comfortable existence. They 
had an abundance of food, unless crops failed, and wine or cider 
to drink. They shared a common life in the work of the fields, 
in the sports of the village green, and in the services of the parish 
church. They enjoyed many holidays; it has been estimated 
that, besides Sundays, about eight weeks in every year were free 
from work. 'Festivities at Christmas, 
Easter, and May Day, at the end of 
plowing and the completion of harvest, 
also relieved the monotony of labor. 

A medieval village usually contained 
several classes of laborers. There might 

Freemen, be a number of freemen, 

slaves, and who paid a fixed rent, 
serfs either in money or pro¬ 

duce, for the use of their land. A few 
slaves might also be found in the lord’s 
household or at work on his demesne. 
Slavery, however, gradually died out in 
western Europe during the early Mid¬ 
dle Ages. Most of the peasants were 
serfs. 

A slave belonged to his master; he was bought and sold like 
other chattels. A serf had a higher position, for he could not be 
Nature of sold apart from the land nor could his holding be 
serfdom taken from him. He was fixed to the soil. On 
the other hand, a serf ranked lower than a freeman, because 
he could not change his abode, or marry outside the manor, 
or bequeath his goods, without the permission of his lord. 

The serf did not receive his land as a gift; for the use of it 
he owed certain duties to his master. These took chiefly the 
Obligations form of personal services. He must labor on the 
of the serf lord’s demesne for two or three days each week, 
and at specially busy seasons, such as plowing and harvesting, 



Serf Warming his 
Hands 

After a medieval manuscript. 






























City Life 


9 i 


he must do extra work. At least half his time was usually 
demanded by the lord. The serf had also to make certain pay¬ 
ment, either in money or more often in grain, honey, eggs, or 
other produce. When he ground the wheat or pressed the 
grapes which grew on his land, he must use the lord’s mill or 
the lord’s wine-press, and pay the customary charge. 

Serfdom developed during the later centuries of the Roman 
Empire and in the early Middle Ages. Many serfs seem to have 
been descendants of the tenants, both free and origin of 
servile, who had worked the great Roman estates serfdom 
in western Europe. The serf class was also recruited from the 
ranks of free Germans, whom the disturbed conditions of the 
time induced to seek the protection of a lord. 

Serfdom, being a system of forced labor, was not very profita 
ble to the lord, and it was irksome to his dependents. After the 
revival of trade and industry in the later Middle Extinction of 
Ages had brought more money into circulation, serfdom 
the lord discovered how much better it was to hire men to work 
for him, instead of depending on serfs who shirked their tasks 
as far as possible. The latter, in turn, were glad to pay the lord 
a fixed sum (rent) for the use of the land, since now they could 
devote themselves entirely to its cultivation. The extinction 
of serfdom began in western Europe as early as the twelfth cen¬ 
tury. It had practically disappeared in this part of the Conti¬ 
nent by the dawn of modern times. Some European countries, 
however, retained serfdom much longer. Prussian, Austrian, 
and Russian serfs did not secure freedom until the nineteenth 
century. 

20. City Life 

The great economic feature of the later Middle Ages was the 
civic revival. The growth of industry and commerce led to the 
increase of wealth, the growth of markets, and the The civic 
substitution of money payments for those in prod- revival 
uce or services. Flourishing cities arose, as in the days of the 
Roman Empire, freed themselves from the control of the nobles, 
and became the homes of liberty and democracy. 


♦ 



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City Life 


93 


A number of medieval cities stood on the sites, and even 
within the walls, of Roman municipalities. Particularly in 
Italy, southern France, and Spain, and also in cities of 
the Rhine and Danube regions, it seems that some Roman origin 
ancient cities had never been entirely destroyed during the 
barbarian invasions. They preserved their Roman names, their 
streets, aqueducts, amphitheaters, and churches, and possibly 
vestiges of their Roman institutions. Among them were such 
important centers as Milan, Florence, Venice, Lyons, Marseilles, 
Paris, Vienna, Cologne, London, and York. 

Many medieval cities were new foundations. Some began as 
small communities which increased in size because of exceptional 
advantages of situation. A place where a river origin of 
could be forded, where two roads met, or where other cities 
a good harbor existed, would naturally become the resort of 
traders. Some, again, started as fortresses, behind whose ram¬ 
parts the peasants took refuge when danger threatened. A 
third group of cities developed from villages on the manors. A 
thriving settlement was pretty sure to spring up near a monas¬ 
tery or castle, which offered both protection and employment to 
the common people. 

The city at first formed part of the feudal system. It arose 
upon the territory of a lord and owed obedience to him. The 
citizens ranked not much higher than serfs, though The city and 
they were traders and artisans instead of farmers, feudalism 
They enjoyed no political rights, for their lord collected the 
taxes, appointed officials, kept order, and punished offenders. 
In short, the city was not free. As its inhabitants became more 
numerous and wealthy, they refused to submit to oppression. 
Sometimes they won their freedom by hard fighting; more often 
they purchased it, perhaps from some noble who needed money 
to go on a crusade. In France, England, and Spain, where the 
royal power was strong, the cities only obtained exemption 
from their feudal burdens. In Germany and Italy, on the other 
hand, the weakness of the central government permitted many 
cities to secure complete independence. One of them survives 
to this day as the little Italian republic of San Marino, and 


94 


Medieval Times in Europe 


three others — Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck — entered the 
German Empire in the nineteenth century as separate common¬ 
wealths. 

The free city had no room for either slaves or serfs. All ser¬ 
vile conditions ceased inside its walls. The rule prevailed that 
Rise of the any one who had lived in a city for the term of a 
middle class y ear anc [ a d a y cou id no longer be claimed by a lord 
as his serf. This rule found expression in the saying, “Town 
air renders free.” The freedom of the cities naturally attracted 
many immigrants to them. There came into existence a middle 
class of city people — merchants, artisans, and professional men 
— between clergy and nobles on the one side and peasants on 
the other side. The kings of England, France, and some other 
European countries soon began to summon representatives of 
this middle class to .sit in assemblies (parliaments), as the 
Third Estate, along with the clergy and the nobles, who formed 
the first two estates of the realm. 

The visitor approaching a medieval city through miles of 
open fields saw it clear in the sunlight, unobscured by coal 
A city from smoke. It looked like a fortress from without, 
without with walls, towers, gateways, drawbridges, and 

moat. Beyond the fortifications he would see, huddled together 
against the sky, the spires of the churches and the cathedral, 
the roofs of the larger houses, and the dark, frowning mass 
ofi the castle. The general impression was one of wealth and 
strength and beauty. 

The visitor would not find things so attractive within the 
walls. The streets were narrow, crooked, and ill-paved, dark 
A city from during the day because of the overhanging houses, 
within and without illumination at night. There were no 

open spaces or parks except a small market place. The whole 
city was cramped by its walls, which shut out light, air, and 
view, and prevented expansion into the neighboring country. 
Medieval London, for instance, covered an area of less than one 
square mile. 

The small size of medieval cities — few included as many as 
ten thousand inhabitants — simplified the problem of governing 


City Life 


95 


them. The leading merchants usually formed a council presided 
over by a head magistrate, the burgomaster or mayor, who 
was assisted by aldermen. In some places the Municipal 
guilds chose the officials and managed civic affairs, government 
These associations had many functions and held a most im¬ 
portant place in city life. 

A guild of merchants grew up when those who bought and 
sold goods in any place united to protect their own interests. 
The membership included many artisans, as well as Merchant 
professional traders, for in medieval times a man £ uilds 
might sell in the front room of his shop the goods which he and 
his assistants made in the back rooms. 

The chief duty of a merchant guild was to preserve to its own 
members the monopoly of trade within a town. Strangers and 
non-guildsmen could not buy or sell there except Commercial 
under conditions imposed by the guild. They monopoly 
must pay the town tolls, confine their dealings to guildsmen, 
and as a rule sell only at wholesale. They were forbidden to 
purchase wares which the townspeople wanted for themselves, 
or to set up shops for retail trade. They enjoyed more freedom 
at the numerous fairs, which were intended to attract outsiders. 

The traders and artisans engaged in a particular occupation 

also formed associations of their own. These were the craft 

guilds, composed of weavers, shoemakers, brewers, „ , 
f , , . . . Craft guilds 

bakers, tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, tanners, 

and other workmen. The names of the various occupations 
came to be used as the surnames of those engaged in them, so 
that to-day we have such common family names as Smith, 
Cooper, Fuller, Potter, and Chandler. The number of craft 
guilds in an important city might be very large. London and 
Paris at one time each had more than one hundred, and Cologne 
in Germany had as many as eighty. The members of a par¬ 
ticular guild usually lived in the same street or quarter of the 
city, not only for companionship, but also for better supervision 
of their labor. 

Just as the merchant guilds regulated town trade, so the 
craft guilds had charge of town industry. No one could engage 


9 6 


Medieval Times in Europe 


in any craft without becoming a member of the guild which 
controlled it and submitting to the guild regulations. A man’s 
Industrial hours of labor and the prices at which he sold 

monopoly his goods were fixed for him by the guild. He 

might not work elsewhere than in his shop, because of the diffi¬ 
culty of supervising him, nor might he work by artificial light, 
lest he turn out badly finished goods. Everything made by him 
was carefully inspected to see if it contained shoddy materials 
or showed poor workmanship. Failure to meet the test meant 
a heavy fine or perhaps expulsion from the guild. The industrial 
monopoly possessed by the craft guild thus gave some protection 
to both producer and consumer. 

Full membership in a guild was reached only by degrees. A 
boy started as an apprentice, that is, a learner. He paid a sum 
Organization mone y t° his master and agreed to serve him for 
of craft a fixed period, usually seven years. The master, 

gullds in turn, promised to provide the apprentice with 

food, lodging, and clothing, and to teach him all the secrets of 
the craft. The apprentice had to pass an examination by the 
guild, at the end of his term of service. If he was found fit, he 
then became a journeyman and worked for daily wages. As 
soon as he had saved enough money, he might set up as a master 
in his own shop. A master was at once workman and employer, 
laborer and capitalist. 

The guilds had their charitable and religious aspects. Each 
one raised large benefit funds for the relief of members or their 
Activities widows and orphans. Each one had its private 

of craft altar in the cathedral, or often its own chapel, 

gmlds where masses were said for the repose of the souls 

of deceased members, and where on the day of its patron saint 
religious services were held. The guild was also a social organi¬ 
zation, with frequent meetings for a feast in its hall or in some 
inn. The guilds in some cities entertained the people with an 
annual play or procession. It is clear that the members of a 
craft guild had common interests and shared a common life. 

Nearly every town of consequence had a weekly or semi¬ 
weekly market, which was held in the market place or in the 


City Life 


97 


“ Just price 


churchyard. Outsiders who brought cattle and farm produce 
for sale in the market were required to pay tolls, either to 
the town authorities or sometimes to a neighbor- m ^ ^ 
ing nobleman. These market dues survive in 
the octroi collected at the gates of some European cities. 

People in the Middle Ages did not believe in unrestricted com¬ 
petition. It was thought wrong for any one to purchase goods 
outside of the regular market (“forestalling”) or to 
purchase them in larger quantities than necessary 
(“engrossing”). A man ought not to charge for a thing more 
than it was worth, or to 
buy a thing cheap and 
sell it dear. The idea 
prevailed that goods 
should be sold at their 
“ just price,” which was 
not determined by sup¬ 
ply and demand, but 
by an estimate of the 
cost of the materials 
and the labor that went 
into their manufacture. 

Laws were often passed 
fixing this “just price.” 

Many towns also 
held fairs once or twice 

a year. ^ . 

Fairs 

They were 

especially necessary in 
medieval Europe, be¬ 
cause merchants did not keep large quantities or many kinds 
of goods on their shelves, nor could intending purchasers 
afford to travel far in search of what they wanted. A fair at 
an English town, such as Stourbridge, Winchester, or St. Ives, 
might attract Venetians and Genoese with silk, pepper, and 
spices of the East, Flemings with fine cloths and linens, 
Spaniards with iron and wine, Norwegians with tar and pitch 



A Fair in the Fifteenth Century 

After a miniature representing the blessing of a fair. 



















98 Medieval Times in Europe 

from their forests, and Baltic merchants with furs, amber, and 
salted fish. 

Commerce in western Europe had almost disappeared as a 
result of the barbarian invasions and the establishment of feu- 
c dalism. What little commercial intercourse there 

was encountered many obstacles. A merchant 
who went by land from country to country might expect to find 
bad roads, few bridges, and poor inns. Goods were transported 
on pack-horses instead of in wagons. Highway robbery was so 
common that travelers always carried arms and united in bands 
for better protection. The feudal lords, often themselves not 
much more than highwaymen, demanded tolls at every bridge 
and ford and on every road. If the merchant proceeded by 
water, he must face, in addition to the ordinary hazards of wind 
and wave, the danger from the ill-lighted coasts and from attacks 
by pirates. No wonder commerce languished in western Europe 
during the Middle Ages. It did not begin to assume consider¬ 
able proportions until the time of the crusades, in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries. 

One hindrance to business enterprise in medieval times was 
the inadequate supply of money. From the beginning of the 
Lack of Christian era to the twelfth century there seems 

mone y to have been a steady decrease in the amount of 

money in circulation, partly because so much moved to the 
Orient in payment for luxuries, and partly because the few mines 
in western Europe went out of use during the period of the 
invasions. The scarcity of money helped directly to build up 
the feudal system, since wages, salaries, and rents could be paid 
only in personal services or in commodities. The money supply 
increased during the latter part of the Middle Ages, but it did 
not become sufficient for the needs of business until the dis¬ 
covery of the New World enabled the Spaniards to tap the 
wealth of the silver mines in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. 

The prejudice against “usury,” as any lending of money at 
“ Usury ” interest was called, made another hindrance to busi- 

laws ness enterprise. It seemed wrong for a person 

to receive interest, since he lost nothing by the loan of his 


City Life 


99 


money. Numerous Church laws condemned the receipt of in¬ 
terest as unchristian. If, however, the lender could show that 
he had suffered any loss, or had been prevented from making 



Trade Routes between Northern and Southern Europe in the 
13 TH and 14 TH Centuries 


any gain, through not having his money, he might charge some¬ 
thing for its use. People in time began to distinguish between 
interest moderate in amount and an excessive charge for the 



























IOO 


Medieval Times in Europe 


use of money. The latter alone was henceforth prohibited as 
usurious. Most modern states still have usury laws which fix 
the legal rate of interest. 

The business of money lending, denied to Christians, fell into 
the hands of the Jews. In nearly all European countries popu- 
The Jews as ^ ar P re j u dice forbade the Jews to engage in agricul- 
money ture, while the guild regulations barred them from 

industry. They turned to trade and finance for 
a livelihood and became the chief capitalists of medieval times. 



Florentine Bankers Settling Accounts 


But the law gave the Jews no protection, and kings and nobles 
constantly extorted large sums from them. The persecutions 
of the Jews date from the era of the crusades, when it was as 
easy to excite fanatical hatred against them as against the 
Moslems. One English king (Edward I) drove the Jews from 
England, and Ferdinand and Isabella expelled them from Spain. 

The Jews were least persecuted in the commercial cities of 
northern Italy. Florence, Genoa, and Venice in the thirteenth 


















































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MAGDALEN COLLEGE_ AND BRIDGE, OXFORD 
















National States 


IOI 


century were the money centers of Europe. The banking com¬ 
panies in these cities received deposits and then loaned the money 
to foreign governments and great nobles. The Italian 
Italian banking houses had branches in the princi- banking 
pal cities of Europe. It became possible, therefore, to introduce 
the use of bills of exchange as a means of balancing debts between 
countries, without the necessity of sending the actual money. 
This system of international credit was doubly important at a 
time when so many risks attended the transportation of the 
precious metals. Another Florentine invention was bookkeep¬ 
ing by double-entry. 


21 . National States 

Europe in 1914 included twenty national states. More have 
been added as a result of the World War. Their present boun¬ 
daries only in part coincide with those fixed by Geographical 
geography. The British Isles, it is true, constitute boundaries 
a single political unit, as nature seems to have intended, but 
Ireland has been a very unwilling member of the United King¬ 
dom. The Iberian Peninsula, bounded on the north by the 
Pyrenees, seems to form another natural political unit, yet within 
the peninsula there are two independent states. On the whole, 
such great mountain ranges as the Alps, Carpathians, and 
Balkans, and such great rivers as the Rhine, Danube, and 
Vistula, have failed to provide permanent frontiers for Euro¬ 
pean states. 

It is still more difficult to trace racial boundaries in modern 
Europe. Peaceful migrations and invasions, beginning in pre¬ 
historic times and continuing to the present, have Racial and 
led to much mixture of peoples. Nor is every linguistic 
European state one in language. France includes 
the district of Brittany, where a Celtic speech prevails. Switzer¬ 
land has French, German, and Italian-speaking cantons. In the 
British Isles one may still hear Welsh, Gaelic (in the Highlands), 
and Irish. The possession of a common language undoubtedly 
tends to bring peoples together and keep them together, but it 
is not an indispensable condition of their unity. 


102 


Medieval Times in Europe 


History, rather than geography, race, or even language, ex¬ 
plains the present grouping of European states. When the 
St t ki Christian era opened, all the region between the 
North Sea and the Black Sea and from the Mediter¬ 
ranean to the Rhine and the Danube belonged to the Roman 
Empire. This Romanized Europe made a solid whole, with one 
government, one law, and one language. Five hundred years 
passed, and Europe under the influence of the barbarian inva¬ 
sions began to split up into a number of separate, independent 
states. This process of state-making continued throughout the 

Middle Ages. The three 
strongest states in Europe 
at the end of the medieval 
period were England, 
France, and Spain. 

The dominions which 
William the Conqueror and 

Unification Of his Norman 
the British knights won by 
Isles the sword in 

1066 included neither Wales, 
Scotland, nor Ireland. It 
was almost inevitable, how¬ 
ever, that in process of time 
the British Isles should come 
under a single government. 
Unification began with the conquest of Wales by Edward I, near 
the close of the thirteenth century. He also annexed Scotland, 
but his weakling son, whom the Scots defeated, abandoned 
the country. It remained independent for the remainder of the 
medieval period. The English first entered Ireland in the second 
half of the twelfth century, but for a long time held only a small 
district about Dublin, known as the Pale. Ireland by its situa¬ 
tion could scarcely fail to become an appanage of Great Britain, 
but the dividing sea combined with differences in race, language, 
and religion, and with English misgovernment, to prevent any¬ 
thing like a genuine union of the conquerors and the conquered. 



Great Seal oe Henry II (Obverse) 

Henry II (reigned 1154-1189) was a grandson 
of William the Conqueror and the founder of the 
Plantagenet dynasty of English kings. 



National States 


103 


Nature seems to have intended that France should play a 
leading part in European affairs. The geographical unity of the 
country is obvious. Mountains and seas form its Physical 
permanent boundaries, except on the northeast, France 
where the frontier is not well defined. The western coast of 
France opens on the Atlantic, now the greatest highway of the 
world’s commerce, while on the southeast France touches the 
Mediterranean, the home of classical civilization. This inter¬ 
mediate position between two seas helps us to understand why 
French history should form, as it were, a connecting link between 
ancient and modern times. 

But the greatness of France has been due, in addition, to the 
qualities of the French people. Many racial elements have con¬ 
tributed to the population. The blood of prehis- 

. . . . Racial France 

tone men, whose monuments and grave mounds are 

scattered over the land, still flows in the veins of Frenchmen. At 
the opening of historic times France was chiefly occupied by the 
Gauls, whom Julius Caesar found there and subdued. The Gauls, 
a Celtic-speaking people, formed in later ages the main stock of 
the French nation, but their language gave place to Latin after the 
Roman conquest. The Gauls were so thoroughly Romanized that 
they may best be described as Gallo-Romans. The Germans and 
the Northmen afterward added a Teutonic element to the popu¬ 
lation, as well as some infusion of Teutonic laws and customs. 

France, again, became a great nation because of the greatness 
of her rulers. The French sovereigns worked steadily to unite 
the feudal states of medieval France into a real Unification of 
nation under a common government. Their sue- France 
cess in this task made them, at the close of the Middle Ages, the 
strongest monarchs in Europe. 

Spain in historic times was conquered by the Carthaginians, 
who left few traces of their occupation; by the Romans, who 
thoroughly Romanized the country; by the Visi- Unification of 
goths, who founded a Teutonic kingdom; and s P ain 
lastly by the Moors, 1 who introduced Arabian culture and the 

iThe name “Moor” is applied to the Arab and Berber peoples who occupied 
North Africa and Spain. 



The British Isles during the Middle Ages 


















































National States 


!°5 


faith of Islam. The Moors never wholly overran a fringe of 
mountain territory in the extreme north of the peninsula. Here 
arose several Christian states, including Leon, Castile, Navarre, 
and Aragon. They steadily enlarged their boundaries, and by 
the close of the thirteenth century Moorish Spain had been re¬ 
duced to the kingdom of Granada. Meanwhile, the separate 
states were coming together, and the marriage of Ferdinand 
of Aragon to Isabella of Castile completed the process. 
Ferdinand and Isabella captured Granada in 1492, thus ending 
Moorish rule in Spain. No effort was made by the Ottoman 
Turks, who shortly before had taken Constantinople, to defend 
this last stronghold of Islam in the West. 

The complete establishment of feudalism in any country 
meant, as has been shown, its division into numerous small 
communities, each with an army, law court, and Feudalism 
treasury. A king often became little more than a and r °y allt y 
figurehead, equaled or perhaps surpassed in power by some of 
his own vassals. The sov¬ 
ereigns, who saw them¬ 
selves thus stripped of 
all but the semblance of 
authority, were naturally 
anti-feudal, and during 



the later Middle 
they began to get 
the upper hand of 
their nobles. They 
formed permanent 
armies by insist- 
ing that all mill- Deathbed of a King 

tary service should be rendered to themselves and not to the 
feudal lords. They put down private warfare between the 
nobles and took over the administration of justice. They de¬ 
veloped a revenue system, with the taxes collected by royal 
officers and deposited in the royal treasury. The sovereigns 
thus succeeded in creating a unified, centralized government, 
which all their subjects feared, respected, and obeyed. 




















io6 


Medieval Times in Europe 


The triumph of royalty over feudalism was in many ways a 
gain for civilization. Feudalism, though better than no govern- 
The new ment at all, did not meet the needs of a progressive 
monarchies society. Only strong-handed kings could keep the 
peace, punish crime, and foster industry and trade. The kings, 
of course, were generally despotic, repressing not only the privi¬ 
leges of the nobles but also popular liberties. Despotism never 
became so pronounced in England as on the Continent, because 
the English people during the Middle Ages developed a Parlia¬ 
ment to represent them and the Common Law to protect them 
from royal oppression. They also compelled various sovereigns 
to issue charters, especially Magna Carta, which was secured 
from King John in 1215. This famous document, among other 
things, provided that henceforth no one might be arrested, im¬ 
prisoned, or punished in any way, except after a trial by his 
equals and in accordance with the law of the land. Magna 
Carta contained the germ of legal principles upon which 
Englishmen ever afterward relied for protection against their 
rulers. 

The new monarchies, by breaking down feudalism, promoted 
the growth of national or patriotic sentiments. Loyalty to the 
The new sovereign and to the state which he represented 
nationalism gradually replaced allegiance to the feudal lord. 
Nobles, clergy, city folk, and peasants began to think of them¬ 
selves as one people and to have for their “fatherland” the 
warmest feelings of patriotic devotion. This new nationalism 
was especially well developed in England, France, and Spain 
at the close of the Middle Ages. 

22 . The Culture of the Later Middle Ages 

The later Middle Ages, which abolished slavery and began the 
extinction of serfdom, developed numerous cities with a flour- 
Frogress in ishing industry and commerce, and produced 
the later strong national states out of the chaos of feudalism, 
Middle Ages were nota |3i e f or man y other contributions to 
civilization. Architecture revived and flowered in majestic 
cathedrals. Education likewise revived, especially in the uni- 



REIMS CATHEDRAL 

The cathedral of Notre Dame at Reims in northwestern France stands on the site where 
Clovis was baptized by St. Remi. Here most of the French kings were consecrated with 
holy oil by the archbishops of Reims. Except the west front, which was built in the four¬ 
teenth century, the cathedral was completed by the end of the thirteenth century. The 
towers, 267 feet high, were originally designed to reach 394 feet. The facade, with its three 
arched portals, exquisite rose window, and “gallery of the kings,” is justly celebrated. The 
cathedral — walls, roof, statues, and windows — was terribly damaged by the German bom¬ 
bardment during the late war,. 




































CHOIR OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

The church formerly attached to the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter in Westminster 
was built in the 13th century, upon the site of an earlier church raised by Edward the 
Confessor in the nth century. Since the Norman Conquest all but one of the English sov¬ 
ereigns have been crowned here, and until the time of George III, it served as their last rest¬ 
ing place. The abbey is now England’s Hall of Fame, where many of her distinguished 
statesmen, warriors, poets, artists, and scientists are buried. 















































































































The Culture of the Later Middle Ages 107 


versities with their thousands of students. The various Euro¬ 
pean languages began to assume the form that they have to-day. 
A large body of literature, both in poetry and prose, made its 
appearance. We may now consider these contributions in some 
detail. 

Architecture made little advance in western Europe for 
several centuries after the barbarian invasions, except in Italy, 
which was subject to Byzantine influence, and in Romanesque 
Spain, which was a center of Moorish culture. The architecture 
architectural revival dates from the time of Charlemagne, with 
the adoption of the style of building called Romanesque, because 
it made use of vaulting, domes, and the round arch, as in Roman 
structures. 1 

The style of building called Gothic (after the Goths) prevailed 
during the later Middle Ages. It formed a natural development 
from Romanesque. The architects cf a Gothic Gothic archi- 
cathedral wished to retain the vaulted ceiling, but tecture 
at the same time to do away with thick, solid walls, which had 
so little window space as to leave the interior of the building dark 
and gloomy. They solved this problem, in the first place, by 
using a great number of stone ribs, which rested on columns and 
gathered up the weight of the ceiling. Ribbed vaulting made 
possible higher ceilings, spanning wider areas, than in Roman¬ 
esque churches. In the second place, the columns supporting 
the ribs were themselves connected by means of flying buttresses 
with stout piers of masonry outside the walls of the church. 
These walls, relieved from the pressure of the ceiling, now be¬ 
came a mere screen to keep out the weather. They could be 
built of light materials and filled with high and wide windows. 
Gothic builders also substituted for the Roman round arch the 
lighter and more graceful pointed arch, which had long been 
known and used by the Arabs. The interior of a Gothic cathe¬ 
dral, with its vast nave rising in swelling arches to the vaulted 
roof, its clustered columns, its glowing windows, and infinite 
variety of ornamentation, forms the most awe-inspiring sanc¬ 
tuary ever raised by man. 


1 See page 56. 


io8 


Medieval Times in Europe 


The universities developed from cathedral and monastic 
schools, where boys were trained to become priests or monks. 
The teaching, which lay entirely in the hands of Elementary 
the clergy, was elementary in character. Pupils education 
learned enough Latin grammar to read religious books, if not 



Plan or Salisbury Cathedral, England 

i Principal west doorway; 2, 3 aisles of nave; 4 north porch; 5 tower; 6, 6 pulpits; 7 
throne; 8 altar; 9 font; 10, 11 choir aisles; 12, 13 east or choir transept; 14 sacristy; 15 
cloister; 16 chapter house. 


always to understand them, and enough music to follow the 
service of the Church. They also studied arithmetic by means 
of the awkward Roman notation, received a smattering of geom¬ 
etry and astronomy, and sometimes gained a little knowledge of 
such subjects as geography, law, and philosophy. Besides these 






















































The Culture of the Later Middle Ages 109 

Church schools, others were maintained by the guilds and also 
by private benefactors. 

There are about fifty European universities dating from the 
later Middle Ages. They arose, as it were, spontaneously. 
Western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth cen- Ri se 0 f uni- 
turies felt the thrill of a great intellectual revival, versities 
It was stimulated by intercourse with the highly cultivated 
Arabs in Spain, Sicily, and the East, and with the Greek scholars 
of Constantinople during 
the crusades. The desire 
for instruction became so 
general that the elementary 
schools could not satisfy it. 

Other schools were then 
opened in the cities, and to 
them flocked eager learners 
from every quarter. Such 
was the origin of the Uni¬ 
versity of Paris, which at 
one time had more than 
five thousand students. It 
furnished the model for the 
English university of Ox¬ 
ford, as well as for the 
learned institutions of Scot¬ 
land, Denmark, Sweden, 
and Germany. Those in 
Italy and Spain were modeled, more or less, upon the university 
of Bologna. 

The word “university ” 1 meant at first simply a union or 
association. In the Middle Ages all artisans belonged to guilds, 
and when teachers and pupils associated themselves university 
for study they naturally copied the guild form of organization 
organization. After passing part of his examination, a student 
(apprentice) became a “bachelor of arts” (journeyman) and 
might teach certain elementary subjects to those beneath 
1 Latin universitus. 
















no 


Medieval Times in Europe 


him. Upon the completion of the full course — usually six 
years in length — the bachelor took his final examination 
and, if successful, received the coveted degree of “master of 
arts.” 


Studies 


The studies in a medieval university were grouped under the 
four faculties of arts, theology, law, and medicine. The first- 
named faculty taught the “seven liberal arts,” 
that is, grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, 
geometry, and astronomy. Theology, law, and medicine then, 

as now, were profes¬ 
sional studies, taken 
up after the comple¬ 
tion of the arts course. 

Latin continued to 
be an international 
language throughout 
the medieval period. 
The Roman Church 
used it 


Latin as an 

international for papal 
language bu]ls and 

other documents. 
Prayers were recited, 
hymns were sung, and 
sometimes sermons 
were preached in Latin. 
It was also the language of men of culture everywhere in 
Christendom. University professors lectured in Latin, students 
spoke Latin, lawyers addressed judges in Latin, and the mer¬ 
chants in different countries wrote Latin letters to one another. 
All learned books were composed in Latin until the close of the 
sixteenth century. This practice has not yet been entirely 
abandoned by scholars. 

Each European country during the later Middle Ages had 
Romance also its own national tongue. The Romance lan- 
languages guages, including modern French, Italian, Spanish, 
Portuguese, and Rumanian, were derived from the Latin spoken 



A University Lecture 

After a fifteenth-century manuscript in the British 
Museum. 











































































The Culture of the Later Middle Ages in 

by the Romanized inhabitants of the lands now known as France, 
Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Rumania . 1 

The French language originated from the popular Latin of the 
Gallo-Romans in the north of France, particularly in the region 
about Paris. The unification of the French king- p ^ 
dom gradually extended the speech of northern 
France over the entire country. French contains less than a 
thousand words introduced by the Teutonic invaders of Gaul. 
Even fewer in number are the words of Celtic origin. The 
language, therefore, is almost entirely of Latin derivation. 

The Teutonic peoples who remained outside what had been 
the limits of the Roman world continued to use their native 
tongues during the Middle Ages. Thus arose Teutonic lan- 
modern German, Dutch, Flemish, and the various s ua s es 
Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Ice¬ 
landic). All these languages in their earliest known forms show 
unmistakable traces of a common origin. 

Britain was the only Roman province in the west of Europe 
where a Teutonic language took root and maintained itself. 
Flere the rough, guttural speech of the Anglo- Engl . gh 
Saxons completely drove out the popular Latin. 

The coming of the Normans deeply affected Anglo-Saxon. 
Norman-French influence helped to make the language simpler, 
by ridding it of the cumbersome declensions and conjugations 
which it had in common with all Teutonic tongues. Many new 
Norman-French words also crept in, as the hostility of the Eng¬ 
lish people toward their conquerors disappeared. Anglo-Saxon, 
by the middle of the thirteenth century, had so far developed 
that it may now be called English. The changes in the grammar 
of the language have been so slight since the end of the fifteenth 
century that any Englishman of ordinary education can read 
without difficulty a book written more than four hundred years 
ago. English has been, and still is, extremely hospitable to new 
words, so that its vocabulary has grown very fast by the adop¬ 
tion of terms from Latin, French, and other tongues. These 
have immensely increased the expressiveness of English, while 
1 See page 54. 


112 


Medieval Times in Europe 


giving it a position midway between the very different Romance 
and Teutonic languages. 

Medieval literature includes some notable productions. 
Many beautiful hymns were composed in Latin. A number of 
them have been translated into English, such as 
Lyric poetry ^ familiar “Jerusalem the Golden.” Latin 
hymns made use of rhyme, then something of a novelty, and thus 
helped to popularize this'poetic device. A pleasant glimpse of 
gay society is afforded by the songs 
of the troubadours. These profes¬ 
sional poets flourished in the south 
of France. Their verses, composed 
in the Provencal 1 language, were 
always sung to the accompaniment of 
some musical instrument, generally 
the lute. Romantic love and deeds 
of chivalry were the two themes 
which most inspired the trouba¬ 
dours. They, too, took up the use 
of rhyme, using it so skillfully as to 
become the teachers of Europe in 
lyric poetry. 

Northern France gave birth to epic or narrative poems, de¬ 
scribing the exploits of mythical heroes or historic kings. Such 
poems enjoyed high esteem in aristocratic circles 
and penetrated all countries where feudalism pre¬ 
vailed. Many of the French epics dealt with Charlemagne and 
his reign. The oldest and at the same time the finest of them is 
the Song of Roland. It tells how Roland, one of Charlemagne’s 
mighty warriors, fought against the Moors in Spain and how, 
overcome by numbers, he died gloriously on the field of battle, 
with his face to the enemy and a prayer on his lips that “sweet 
France” might never be dishonored. The greatest epic com¬ 
posed in Germany is the Nibelungenlied , or Song of the Nibelungs. 
Its author is unknown, but his work has a place among the 
classics of German literature. 

1 A Romance language, closely related to French, and spoken in the south of France. 



A Ballad Singer 


Epic poetry 





The Culture of the Later Middle Ages 113 


Our survey of medieval times in western Europe has been 
confined largely to the later Middle Ages. When the Arabs had 
brought the culture of the Near East to Spain and 
Sicily, when the Northmen after their wonderful Middle Ages 
expansion had settled down in Normandy, England and modern 
and other countries, and when the peoples of 
western Europe, whether as pilgrims or crusaders, had visited 
Constantinople and the Holy Land, men’s minds received a 
wonderful stimulus. The intellectual life of Europe was 
“speeded up,” and the way was prepared for the even more 
rapid advance of civilization in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, as the later Middle Ages passed into modern times. 

Studies 

1. Why has feudalism been called “ confusion roughly organized ” ? 2. Contrast 

feudalism as a political system with (a) the classical city-states; (6) the Roman 
Empire; and (c) modern national states. 3. “Medieval Europe was a camp with 
a church in the background.” Comment on this statement. 4. Mention some 
respects in which the Roman Church during the Middle Ages differed from any 
religious society at the .present day. 5. Who is the present pope? When and by 
whom was he elected ? In what city does he reside ? What is his residence called ? 

6. Enumerate some of the benefits which the monastic system conferred on Europe. 

7. Show that the serf was not a slave or a “hired man” or a tenant-farmer paying 
rent. 8. Why has the medieval city been called the “birthplace of modern democ¬ 
racy”? 9. Compare the merchant guild with the modem chamber of commerce, 
and craft guilds with modern trade unions. 10. Why was there no antagonism 
between labor and capital under the guild system ? 11. Are unity of race, a common 
language, a common religion, and geographical unity of themselves sufficient to make 
a nation ? May a nation arise where these bonds are lacking? 12. “ Good govern¬ 
ment in the Middle Ages was only another name for a public-spirited and powerful 
monarchy.” Comment on this statement. 13. Contrast a Gothic cathedral with 
a Greek temple, particularly in regard to size, height, support of the roof, windows, 
and decorative features. 14. Compare medieval with modem universities, noting 
both resemblances and differences between them. 15. Show how Latin served as 
an international language in the Middle Ages. 16. What is meant by saying that 
“French is a mere patois of Latin”? 17. On the map facing page no, trace the 
language frontier between Romance and Teutonic peoples in the tenth century. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE TRANSITION TO THE MODERN WORLD 1 

23 . The Revival of Learning and Art 

The French word Renaissance means Rebirth or Revival. 
It is a convenient term for all the movements in literature and 
The Renais- art, in science and invention, in exploration and 
saiiee colonial expansion, in commerce, industry, and 

business enterprise, and in religion, law, and politics which 
marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern 
world. The Renaissance, just because of its transitional char¬ 
acter, cannot be exactly dated. In general, it covers the fif¬ 
teenth and sixteenth centuries. Many Renaissance movements, 
however, began much earlier, for instance, the rise of national 
states, replacing feudalism, the growth of cities, and the com¬ 
mercial revival which attended and followed the crusades. The 
Renaissance thus appears as a gradual development out of the 
Middle Ages, not as a sudden revolution. 

The name Renaissance applied, at first, only to the rebirth 
or revival of man’s interest in the civilization of classical an- 
Originai home tic l ui ty- Ital Y was the original home of this 
of the Renais- Renaissance. There it first appeared, there it 
found widest acceptance, and there it reached its 
highest development. From Italy the Renaissance spread be¬ 
yond the Alps, until it had made the round of western Europe. 

Italy was a land particularly favorable to the growth of 
Italian cities l earnin g and the arts. The great cities of Milan, 
of the Renais- Pisa, Genoa, Florence, Venice, and many others 
had early succeeded in throwing off their feudal 
burdens and had become independent, self-governing com- 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xix, “A Scholar 
of the Renaissance”; chapter xx, “Renaissance Artists” ; chapter xxii, “ The Aborigi¬ 
nes of the New World”; chapter xxiii, “Martin Luther and the Beginning of the 
Reformation.” 


The Revival of Learning and Art 115 

munities. Democracy flourished in them, as in the old Greek 
city-states. Noble birth counted for little; a man of ability and 
ambition might rise to any place. The fierce party conflicts with¬ 
in their walls stimulated mental activity and helped to make life 
full, varied, and intense. Their widespread trade and thriving 
manufactures made them prosperous. Wealth brought leisure, 
bred a taste for luxury and the refinements of life, and gave 
means for the gratification of that taste. People wanted to 
have about them beautiful pictures, statuary, furniture, palaces, 
and churches; and they rewarded richly the artists who could 
produce such things. It is not without significance that the 
birthplace of the Italian Renaissance was democratic, industrial, 
and wealthy Florence. 

Knowledge of the classics did not entirely disappear in western 
Europe after the barbarian invasions. The monastery and 
cathedral schools of the Middle Ages had nour- Renewed in _ 
ished devoted students of ancient books. The terest in the 
Benedictine monks labored zealously in copying classics 
the works of pagan as well as Christian authors. The rise of 
universities made it possible for the student to pursue a fairly 
extended course in Latin literature at more than one institution 
of learning. Reverence for the classics finds constant expression 
in the writings of the Italian poet Dante (1265-1321), whose 
Divine Comedy , describing an imaginary visit to hell, purgatory, 
and paradise, is a literary masterpiece. Petrarch (1304-1374), 
another Italian man of letters, did much to increase the interest 
in the literature of Rome. He traveled widely in Italy, France, 
and other countries, searching everywhere for ancient manu¬ 
scripts and employing copyists to transcribe those which he 
discovered or borrowed. Petrarch, however, knew almost no 
Greek. His copy of Homer, it is said, he often kissed, though 
he could not read it. Renewed interest in the literature of 
Greece dates from the fifteenth century, when the advance of 
the Ottoman Turks, culminating in the capture of Constanti¬ 
nople in 1453, sent a stream .of Greek exiles into Italy. Some 
of them were learned men, and their conversation and lectures 
greatly stimulated the study of Greek in the West. 


n6 


The Transition to the Modern World 


Humanism 


The languages and literatures of ancient Greece and Rome 
opened up a new world of thought and fancy to scholars. They 
were delighted by the fresh, original, and liberal 
ideas which they discovered in the pages of Homer, 
Plato, Cicero, and other ancient writers. Humanism , 1 as the 
study of the classics was called, before long gained an entrance 
into university courses, and from the universities descended to 
the lower schools. Greek and Latin — the “humanities”—• 
still hold a place in modern systems of education. 

Italy had fostered the revival of learning by recovering the 
long-buried treasures of the classics and by providing means 
Spread of f° r their study. Scholars in Germany, France, 
humanism be- and England continued the intellectual movement 
yond Italy anc [ g ave ft widespread currency. The foremost 
of these scholars was Erasmus (1466-15365, a native of Rotter¬ 
dam in Holland. His travels and extensive correspondence 
brought him in touch with many learned men of the day. The 
most important achievement of Erasmus was an edition of the 
New Testament in the original Greek, with a Latin version. 
This work led to a better understanding of the New Testament 
and also prepared the way for translations of the Scriptures 
into the vernacular tongues. 

The renewed interest in classical studies for a while retarded 
the development of national languages and literatures in 
The vernacu- Europe. Humanists regarded only Latin and 
lar tongues Greek as worthy of attention. But a return to the 
vernacular was bound to come. The common people, who 
understood little Latin and no Greek, had now learned to read. 
Many books were soon written in Italian, Spanish, French, 
English, and other national languages. This revival of the 
vernacular meant that henceforth European literature would 
be more creative and original than was possible when writers 
merely imitated or translated the classics. The sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, we remember, was the age of the Spaniard Cervantes, 
whose Don Quixote is still so popular, of the Frenchman Mon¬ 
taigne, author of many essays full of wit and wisdom, and of 

1 Latin humanitas, “literary culture.” 


The Revival of Learning and Art 


117 


Architecture 


the Englishman Shakespeare, whose genius transcended national 
boundaries and made him a citizen of the world. 

Gothic architecture, with its pointed arches, flying buttresses, 
and traceried windows, never struck deep roots in Italy. The 
architects of the Renaissance went back to Greek 
temples and Roman domed buildings for their 
models, just as the humanists went back to Greek and Latin 
literature. Long rows of Ionic or Corinthian columns, spanned 
by round arches, became again the prevailing architectural 
style. Perhaps the most important feature of Renaissance 
architecture was the use of the dome for the roofs of churches. 





Shakespeare’s Signature 


Sculpture 


The majestic cupola of St. Peter’s at Rome has become the 
parent of many doomed structures in the Old and in the New 
World. Architects, however, did not limit themselves to 
churches. The magnificent palaces of Florence, as well as some 
of those in Venice, are monuments of the Renaissance era. 

The development of architecture naturally stimulated other 
arts. Italian sculptors began to copy the ancient bas-reliefs 
and statues preserved in Rome and other cities. 

The greatest of Renaissance sculptors was Michel¬ 
angelo (1475-1564). Though a Florentine by birth, he lived for 
most of his life in Rome. Michelangelo also won fame in archi¬ 
tecture and painting. The dome of St. Peter’s was finished after 
his designs, while the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel 
in the Vatican display his genius as a painter. 

Italian painting began in the service of the Church and long 
remained religious in character. Artists usually chose subjects 
from the Bible or the lives of the saints. They did 
not trouble themselves to secure correctness of 
costume, but painted ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the 
garb of Italian gentlemen. Many of their pictures were frescoes, 


Painting 


n8 The Transition to the Modern World 


Music 


that is, the colors were mixed with water and applied to the 
plaster walls of churches and palaces. After the process 
of mixing oils with the colors was discovered, pictures on 
wood or canvas (easel paintings) became common. Italian 

painters excelled in portraiture. 
They were less successful with 
landscapes. A list of the “Old 
Masters” of Italian painting 
always includes the names of 
Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and 
Titian. 

Another modern art, that of 
music, arose in Italy during the 
Renaissance. In the 
sixteenth century, the 
three-stringed rebeck received a 
fourth string and became the 
violin, the most expressive of all 
musical instruments. A forerun¬ 
ner of the pianoforte also ap¬ 
peared in the harpsichord. The 
oratorio, a religious drama set to 
music but without action, scenery, 
or costume, had its beginning at 
this time. The opera, however, 
was little developed until the eighteenth century. 

Italian architects found a cordial reception in France, Spain, 
the Netherlands, and other countries, where they introduced 
The artistic Renaissance styles of building and ornamenta- 
revivai be- tion. The celebrated palace of the Louvre in 
yond Italy Paris, which is used to-day as an art gallery and 
museum, dates from the sixteenth century. The French 
nobles now began to replace their somber feudal dwellings by 
elegant country houses. Renaissance sculpture also spread 
beyond Italy throughout Europe. Painters in northern coun¬ 
tries at first followed Italian models, but afterward produced 
masterpieces of their own. 

























































The Revival of Science and Invention 


119 


24 . The Revival of Science and Invention 

The later Middle Ages were not by any means ignorant of 

science, but its study received a great impetus after educated 

men had become familiar with what the ancients 
. . . . . . , . Copernicus 

had done m mathematics, physics, astronomy, 

medicine, and other subjects. The pioneers of Renaissance 
science were Italians, but students in France, England, Germany, 
and other countries soon took up the work of enlightenment. 
The first place among them must be given to Copernicus (1473- 
1543), the founder of modern astronomy. He was a Pole, but 
lived for many years in Italy. Research and calculation led 
him to the conclusion that the earth turns upon its own axis, 
and, together with the other planets, revolves around the sun. 
The book in which he announced this conclusion did not appear 
until the very end of his life. Astronomers before Copernicus 
generally accepted the doctrine, formulated by the Greek scien¬ 
tist Ptolemy in the second century, that the earth was the center 
of the universe. Some students had indeed suggested that the 
earth and planets might rotate about a central sun, but Coper¬ 
nicus first gave adequate reasons for such a belief. 

An Italian astronomer, Galileo, made one of the first telescopes 
— it was about as powerful as an opera glass — and turned it 
on the heavenly bodies with wonderful results. 

He found the sun moving unmistakably on its and 

axis, Venus showing phases according to her 
position in relation to the sun, Jupiter accompanied by revolv¬ 
ing moons, or satellites, and the Milky Way composed of a 
multitude of separate stars. Galileo rightly believed that these 
discoveries confirmed the theory of Copernicus. Another man 
of genius, the German Kepler, worked out the mathematical 
laws which govern the movements of the planets. He made it 
clear that the planets revolve around the sun in elliptical in¬ 
stead of circular orbits. Kepler’s investigations afterward led 
to the discovery of the law of gravitation. 

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and their fellow workers built 
up the scientific method. Students in the Middle Ages had 


120 


The Transition to the Modern World 


mostly been satisfied to accept what Aristotle and other phil¬ 
osophers had said, without trying to verify their statements. The 
The scientific new scientific method rested on observation and 
method experiment. As Lord Bacon, one of Shakespeare’s 

contemporaries, declared, “All depends on keeping the eye 

steadily fixed upon the facts of 
nature, and so receiving their 
images simply as they are, for 
God forbid that we should give 
out a dream of our own imagina¬ 
tion for a pattern of the world.” 

The advance of science always 
depends very much upon prac- 
Appiied tical inventions, 

science Without such things 

as telescopes, microscopes, chro¬ 
nometers, thermometers, and deli¬ 
cate balances, sheer brain power 
cannot go very far in penetrating 
nature’s secrets. Modern scien¬ 
tists are perhaps no better 
thinkers than were those of an¬ 
tiquity, but they have far better 
apparatus and can make careful 
experiments where the ancients 
were obliged to rely on shrewd 
guesses. Three practical inven¬ 
tions worked out at this time 
have had an especially important 
effect on the course of civilization. The three were the printing 
press, gunpowder, and the mariner’s compass. 

The Chinese printed books by means of movable type several 
centuries before the art of printing became known to Europeans. 
The printing In Europe a German printer, Johann Gutenberg 
press 0 f Mainz, seems to have been the first to set up a 

printing press with movable type. His first book, a Latin 
translation of the Bible, was published probably in 1456. 



Galileo’s Telescopes 

Preserved in the Museum of Ancient 
Instruments, Florence. A broken object- 
glass with which Jupiter’s satellites were 
discovered is mounted in the center of the 
ivory frame. 


The Revival of Science and Invention 


121 


Printing met an especially warm welcome in Italy, where people 
felt so keen a desire for reading and instruction. By the end 
of the fifteenth century Venice alone had more than two hundred 
printing presses. Printed books could be multiplied far more 
rapidly than manuscripts copied by hand. They could also be 
far more accurate than manuscripts, for, when an entire edition 



An Alchemist in his Laboratory 


Alchemy was a pseudo science much practiced in the later Middle Ages and in early modern 
times. The alchemists tried to find the ‘‘philosopher’s stone,” which would turn all metals 
into gold. Though they never found it, they did learn a good deal about chemistry and so 
contributed to the development of that science. Notice in this picture the symbols for gold 
(sun), silver (moon), and mercury. The lion devouring a snake represents an acid dissolving 
a salt. 


was printed from the same type, mistakes in the different copies 
were eliminated. Furthermore, the invention of printing de¬ 
stroyed the monopoly of learning possessed by the universities 
and people of wealth. Books were now the possession of the 
many, not the luxury of the few. Any one who could read had 
opened to him the gateway of knowledge; he became a citizen, 
henceforth, of the republic of letters. Printing, which made 
possible popular education, public libraries, and ultimately 



























122 


The Transition to the Modern World 


Gunpowder 


cheap newspapers, thus became a force emancipating mankind 
from bondage to ignorance. 

The compound of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur, known 
as gunpowder, seems to have been first used by the Chinese and 
later by the Arabs. Europeans discovered the 
secret of it as early as the thirteenth century. 
They regarded it as merely a sort of firework, producing a sudden 
and brilliant flame, and did not suspect that in a confined space 

the expansive power of its 
gases could be used to hurl 
projectiles. Gunpowder 
was occasionally manufac¬ 
tured as a propellant dur¬ 
ing the fourteenth century, 
but for a long time it made 
more noise than it did 
harm. Small brass cannon', 
throwing stone or iron balls, 
began at length to displace 
the medieval siege weapons, 
and still later muskets took 
the place of the bow, the 
crossbow, and the pike. 
The revolution in the art 
of warfare introduced by 
gunpowder had vast im¬ 
portance. It destroyed the 
usefulness of the castle and 
enabled the peasant to fight 
the mailed knight on equal terms. Gunpowder, accordingly, 
must be included among the forces which brought about the 
downfall of feudalism. 

The origin of the mariner’s compass is involved in some ob¬ 
scurity. The Chinese have been credited with the discovery 
The mariner’s that a needle, when rubbed with a lodestone, has 
compass the mysterious power of pointing to the north. 
The Arabs may have introduced this rude form of the compass 



An Early Printing Press 

Enlarged from the printer’s mark of I. B. 
Ascensius. Used on the title pages of books 
printed by him between 1507-1535. 

























Geographical Discovery 


123 


among Mediterranean sailors. The instrument, improved by 
being balanced on a pivot so that it would not be affected by 
choppy seas, was used by Europeans as early as the thirteenth 
century. It enabled sailors to find their bearings even in murky 
weather and on starless nights. The mariner’s compass thus 
came to be of great aid in the long voyages of discovery which 
began to be made during early modern times. 

25 . Geographical Discovery 

Some commerce with the Orient had been carried on by the 
cities of Italy and southern France even during the early Middle 
Ages. The crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth The crusades 
centuries greatly increased this commerce. The and com- 
crusading expeditions of the knighthood of Europe merce 
did not win back the Holy Land to Christendom and so must 
be accounted a military failure. Their economic results were 
noteworthy, however. They created a constant demand for 
the transport of men and goods, encouraged ship-building, and 
extended the market for eastern goods in European lands. The 
products of Damascus, Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, and other 
cities were carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian sea¬ 
ports, whence they found their way into all European lands. 
The elegance of the Orient was so enchanting that an enthu¬ 
siastic crusader called it the “vestibule of Paradise.” 

The crusades were followed by many pilgrimages, missions, 
and trading enterprises of Europeans in the Orient. The most 
famous of medieval travelers were the Polos. Medieval ex _ 
These Venetian merchants made an adventurous pioration of 
journey to Cambaluc (now Peking) in China. Asia 
The city then formed the capital of the Mongols, who had over¬ 
run much of Asia and eastern Europe during the thirteenth 
century. The Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, seems to have been 
anxious to introduce Christianity and European culture among 
his subjects. He therefore received the Polos in a friendly 
manner, and they amassed much wealth by trade. Marco 
Polo even entered the Khan’s service and went on several ex¬ 
peditions to distant parts of the Mongol realm. Many years 


124 


The Transition to the Modern World 


passed before Kublai would allow his useful guests to return 
to Europe. When they reached Venice in 1295, after an ab¬ 
sence of twenty-four years, their relatives were slow to recog¬ 
nize in them the long-lost Polos. 1 

The story of the Polos, as written down at Marco’s dictation, 
became one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages. In 
Marco Polo’s this book people read of far Cathay (China), with 
book its huge cities and swarming population, of mys¬ 

terious and secluded Tibet, of Burma, Siam, and Cochin-China, 
with their palaces and pagodas, of the East Indies, famed for 

spices, of Ceylon, abounding 
in pearls, and of India, little 
known since the days of 
Alexander the Great. Even 
Cipango (Japan) Marco de¬ 
scribed from hearsay as an 
island whose inhabitants 
were white, civilized, and so 
rich in gold that the royal 
palace was roofed and paved 
with that metal. The ac¬ 
counts of these countries 
naturally made Europeans 
more eager than ever to 
reach the Far East. 

During the Middle Ages the spices, drugs, perfumes, gems, 
dyes, carpets, rugs, tapestries, porcelains, and gems of India, 

China, and the East Indies entered Europe by 
Trade routes . . 

three mam routes. I he central and most impor¬ 
tant route led by the Persian Gulf and Tigris River to Bagdad, 
from which city goods went by caravan to Antioch or Damascus. 
The southern route reached Cairo and Alexandria by way of 
the Red Sea and the Nile. By taking advantage of the mon¬ 
soons, a merchant ship could make the voyage from India to 
Egypt in about three months. The northern route, entirely 
overland, led to ports on the Black Sea and thence to Constan- 

1 For Marco Polo’s route see the map facing this page. 



The Unicorn 

Medieval peoples believed that many fabulous 
creatures lived in the interior of Asia. One of 
these was the unicorn, with the head and body of a 
horse, the hind legs of an antelope, the beard of 
a goat, and a long sharp horn set in the middle of the 
forehead. The picture above is reproduced from 
an old-time “ Historic of Four-Footed Beastes.” 



*03-Ala3w 










































































. 





























■■ 




























Geographical Discovery 


125 


tinople. It traversed high mountain passes and long stretches 
of desert, and hence was profitably used only for the transport 
of valuable articles small in bulk. Oriental goods, upon reach¬ 
ing the Mediterranean, were then distributed by Italian and 
German merchants throughout Europe. During the fifteenth 
century Portuguese and Spaniards became competitors for this 
lucrative Oriental trade. The Mediterranean being closed to 
them by the naval power of Venice, they tried to find an all¬ 
water route to the Indies, either around Africa into the Indian 
Ocean or directly across the Atlantic. The Portuguese were 
the first in the field. 

The genius of Dom Henriques, more familiarly known in 
history as Prince Henry the Navigator, opened the way ocean- 
wards for Portugal. The son of a Portuguese Prince Henry 
king, he relinquished a military career and for more the Navigator, 
than forty years devoted his wealth, learning, and 1394-1460 
enthusiasm to geographical discovery. Under his direction 
better maps were made, the astrolabe was improved, the compass 
was placed on vessels, and seamen were instructed in all the 
nautical knowledge of the time. Prince Henry then dispatched 
expedition after expedition southward to explore the African 
coast. It is improbable that he himself had definitely in mind 
the opening-up of a trade route to the Far East; his spirit seems 
to have been that of a crusader rather than that of a merchant. 
By rounding the extremity of Africa — then believed to extend 
not far below the equator — he planned to effect a junction 
with the half-fabulous Christian empire of “Prester John” and 
in alliance with that potentate to crush the Turks and liberate 
Palestine. But the religious motive for exploration soon gave 
way to the commercial motive, and the Portuguese, not long after 
Prince Henry’s death, set out to seek the wealth of the Indies. 

The Portuguese began by rediscovering the Madeira Islands 
and the Azores, first visited by Europeans in the fourteenth 
century but subsequently forgotten. Then they Exploration 0 f 
turned southward along the uncharted African the African 
coast, toward waters which no keel had broken coast 
since the time of the Phoenicians. Cape Bojador, the previous 


i^6 


The Transition to the Modern World 


boundary of the unknown, was passed by one of Prince Henry’s 
captains in 1434. Eleven years after another sailor got as far 
as Cape Verde, or “Green Cape,” so called because of its luxu¬ 
riant vegetation. Later voyagers brought the Portuguese to 
Sierra Leone, then to the great bend in the African coast formed 
by the Gulf of Guinea, then across the equator, and at length 
to the mouth of the Congo. In 1487 Bartholomew Diaz rounded 
the southern extremity of Africa. The story goes that he named 



it the Cape of Storms, and that the king of Portugal, recognizing 
its importance as a stage on the route to the East, rechristened 
it the Cape of Good Hope. 

A daring mariner, Vasco da Gama, opened the sea-gates to 
the Indies. He set sail from Lisbon with four tiny ships and 
after leaving the Cape Verde Islands made a wide Da Gama , s 
sweep into the South Atlantic. Five months voyage, 1497- 
passed before Africa was seen again. Da Gama 1499 
doubled the Cape of Good Hope in safety, skirted the eastern 









































Geographical Discovery 


127 


shore of Africa, and at length secured the services of a Moslem 
pilot to guide him across the Indian Ocean. In 1498 he reached 
Calicut, an important commercial city on the southwest coast 
of India. When Da Gama returned to Lisbon after an absence 



The ideas of European geographers in the period just preceding the discovery of America 
are represented on a map, or rather a globe, which dates from 1492. It was made by a German 
navigator, Martin Behaim, for his native city of Nuremberg, where it is still preserved. 
Behaim shows the mythical island of St. Brandan, lying in mid-ocean, and beyond it Cipango, 
the East Indies, and Cathay. The outlines of North America and South America here shown, 
do not appear, of course, on the original globe. 

of over two years, he brought back a cargo which repaid sixty 
times the cost of the expedition. The Portuguese king received 
him with high honor and created him Admiral of the Indies. 

Six years before Vasco da Gama cast anchor in the harbor of 
Calicut, another intrepid sailor, seeking the Indies by a western 























128 


The Transition to the Modern World 


route, accidentally discovered America. It does not detract 
from the glory of Columbus to show that the way for his dis- 
The globular covery had been long in preparation. In the first 
theory place, the theory that the earth is round had been 

familiar to the Greeks and Romans, and to some learned men 
even in the darkest period of the Middle Ages. The awakening 
of interest in Greek science called renewed attention to the 
statements regarding the sphericity of the earth by Ptolemy 
and other ancient geographers. 

In the second place, men had long believed that west of Eu¬ 
rope, beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, lay mysterious lands. This 
Atlantis and n °ti° n first appears in the writings of the Greek 
St. Brandan’s philosopher, Plato, who repeats an old tradition 
concerning Atlantis. According to Plato, Atlantis 
had been an island, continental in size, but thousands of years 
before his time it had sunk beneath the sea. A widespread 
legend of the Middle Ages also described the visit made by St. 
Brandan, an Irish monk, to the “p rom i se d land °f tlrn saints,” 
an earthly paradise far out in the Atlantic. St. Brandan’s 
Island was marked on early maps, and voyages in search of it 
were sometimes undertaken. 

All know the story of the first voyage of Columbus. When 
he started out, he firmly believed that a journey of only four 
First voyage thousand miles would bring him to Cipango and 
of Columbus, the realms of the Great Khan of Cathay. The 
error was natural enough, for Ptolemy had reckoned 
the earth’s circumference to be about one sixth less than it is, 
and Marco Polo had given an exaggerated idea of the distance 
to which Asia extended toward the east. The name West Indies, 
applied to the islands discovered by Columbus, still remains as 
a testimony to this error. 

Shortly after the. return of Columbus from his first voyage, 
Pope Alexander VI, in response to a request by Ferdinand and 
The Demarca- Isabella, issued a bull granting these sovereigns 
tion Line, 1493 exclusive rights over the newly discovered lands. 
In order that the Spanish possessions should be clearly marked 
off from those of the Portuguese, the pope laid down an imagi- 


Geographical Discovery 


129 


nary line of demarcation in the Atlantic, three hundred miles 
west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. All new dis¬ 
coveries west of the line were to belong to Spain and all those 
east of it, to Portugal. 1 This arrangement, which excluded 
France, England, and other European countries from the New 
World, could not be long maintained. 

The Demarcation Line had a good deal to do in bringing about 
the first voyage around the globe. So far no one had yet realized 
the dream of Columbus to reach the lands of spice 
and silk by sailing westward. Ferdinand Magel- ga tion of the 
lan, a Portuguese in the service of Spain, believed 1519_ 

that the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, lay within the 
Spanish sphere of influence and that a route to them could be 
found through some 
strait at the southern 
end of South America. 

The Spanish ruler, 

Charles V, grandson 
of the Isabella who 
had supported Colum¬ 
bus, looked with favor 
upon Magellan’s ideas 
and provided a fleet 
of five vessels for the 
undertaking. After 
exploring the eastern The “Santa Maria,” Flagship of Columbus 

coast of South Amer- After the model reproduced for the Columbian Exposition 
_ _ .. at Chicago, 1893. 

ica, Magellan came at 

length to the strait which now bears his name. He sailed 
boldly through this strait into an ocean called by him the Pacific, 
because of its peaceful aspect. A voyage of ninety-eight days 
across the Pacific brought him to the Marianas Islands. Magel¬ 
lan then proceeded to the Philippines, where he was killed in 
a fight with the natives. His men, however, managed to reach 

1 In 1494 the Demarcation Line was shifted about eight hundred miles farther to 
the west. Six years later, when the Portuguese discovered Brazil, that country was 
found to lie within their sphere of influence. See the map between pages 130-131. 






130 


The Transition to the Modern World 


the Spice Islands. A single ship, the Victoria, subsequently 
carried back to Spain the few sailors who had survived the hard¬ 
ships of a journey lasting nearly three years. 

Magellan’s voyage forms a landmark of geographical dis¬ 
covery. It proved that America, at least on the south, had 
Results of no connection with Asia, and that the western 
the circum- sea-route to the Indies, of which Columbus 
navigation dreamed, really existed. Furthermore, it revealed 
the enormous extent of the Pacific Ocean. Men now knew of 
a certainty that the earth is round and in the distance covered 
by Magellan they had a rough approximation as to its size. 
The circumnavigation of the globe ranks with the discovery of 
the sea-routes to the Indies and to America among the most 
significant events of history. Magellan stands beside Da Gama 
and Columbus in the company of great explorers. 

26 . Colonial Empires 

The Portuguese, after Da Gama’s voyage, hastened to appro¬ 
priate the wealth of the Indies. By the middle of the sixteenth 
Portuguese century they had acquired almost complete as- 
ascendancy in cendancy throughout southern Asia and the ad¬ 
jacent islands. Their colonial empire included 
many trading posts in Africa, Ormuz at the entrance to the 
Persian Gulf, the western coast of India, Ceylon, Malacca at 
the end of the Malay Peninsula, and various possessions in the 
Malay Archipelago. They also established commercial rela¬ 
tions with China, and even with Japan. 

The Portuguese came to the East as the successors of the 
Arabs, who for centuries had carried on an extensive trade in 
Portuguese the Indian Ocean. Having dispossessed the Arabs, 
trade monop- the Portuguese took care to shut out all European 
competitors. Only their own merchants were 
allowed to bring goods from the Indies to Europe by the Cape 
route. Lisbon, the capital, formed the chief depot for spices 
and other eastern commodities. The French, English, and 
Dutch went there to buy them and took the place of Italian and 
German merchants in distributing them throughout Europe. 














































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Colonial Empires 


I 3 I 

The colonial empire which the Portuguese built up in India 
and the East Indies collapsed during the seventeenth century 
before the attacks of the French, the English, and Portugal in 
the Dutch. Their colonial empire in Brazil lasted America 
until the nineteenth century, and their influence still endures 
there, in spite of the severance of political ties. The language, 
religion, literature, and customs of Brazil are tho^e of Portugal. 
It is a marvelous thing that this insignificant parent state, insig¬ 
nificant in area, in natural resources, and in population, should 
have been transplanted, as it were, to the boundless spaces of 
the New World. 

The discoverers of the New World were naturally the pioneers 
in its exploration. The adventures of Ponce de Leon, who dis¬ 
covered Florida in 1513, of Balboa, who sighted Spanish 
the Pacific in the same year, of Cortes, who over- ascendancy in 
threw the Aztec power in Mexico, of Pizarro, who the West 
conquered the Incas of Peru, of De Soto, and of Coronado are 
familiar to every reader of American history. These men laid 
the foundations of the Spanish colonial empire. It included 
Florida, New Mexico, California, Mexico, Central America, 
the West Indies, and all South America except Brazil. 1 

The government of Spain administered its colonial dominions 
in the spirit of monopoly. As far as possible, it excluded French, 
English, Dutch, and other foreigners from trading Spanish trade 
with Spanish America. It also discouraged ship- monopoly 
building, manufacturing, and even the cultivation of the vine 
and the olive, lest the colonists should compete with home in¬ 
dustries. The colonies were regarded only as a work-shop for 
the production of the precious metals and raw materials. This 
unwise policy partly accounts for the backwardness of Mexico, 
Peru, and other Spanish-American countries. 

The colonial empire of Spain on the American mainland lasted 
almost exactly three hundred years. During this time she 
gave her language, religion, law, political institutions, economic 

1 The Philippines, which Magellan discovered in 1521, also belonged to Spain, 
though by the Demarcation Line these islands lay within the Portuguese sphere of 
influence. 



*9 ip V 




132 















































Europe and America 


133 


system, and intellectual life to half the New World. The Span¬ 
ish colonial empire affords, therefore, a great historical example 
of the transmission of culture imperially, some- Spain in 
what as imperial Rome spread Roman civilization America 
throughout western Europe. Her work, like that of Rome, 
endures. It has left an abiding impress upon the millions of 
Spanish-speaking folk who now people the two continents be¬ 
tween the Rio Grande and the Strait of Magellan^ 

The English based their claim to the right to colonize North 
America on the discoveries of John Cabot, an Italian mariner 
in the service of King Henry VII. Cabot sailed The Cabot 
in 1497 from Bristol acrtiss the northern Atlantic voyages, 
and made land somewhere between Labrador and 1497-1498 
Nova Scotia. The following year he seems to have undertaken 
a second voyage and to have explored the coast of North America 
nearly as far as Florida. Cabot found neither gold nor oppor¬ 
tunities for profitable trade. His expeditions, therefore, were 
considered a failure, and for a long time the English took no 
further interest in exploring the New World. 

The discovery by Magellan of a strait leading into the Pacific 
aroused hope that a similar passage, beyond the regions con¬ 
trolled by Spain, might exist in North America. Cartier’s 
The French king, Francis I, sent Jacques Cartier voyages, 
to look for it. Cartier found the gulf and river 1534-1542 
which he named after St. Lawrence, and also tried to establish 
a settlement near where Quebec now stands. The venture was 
not successful, and the French did not undertake the colonization 
of Canada until the first decade of the seventeenth century. 

27 . Europe and America 

The New World contained two virgin continents, rich in 
natural resources and capable of extensive colonization. The 
native peoples, comparatively few in number and Expansion of 
barbarian in culture, could not offer much resist- Eur °P e 
ance to the explorers, missionaries, traders, and colonists from 
the Old World. The Spanish and Portuguese in the sixteenth 
century, followed by the English, French, and Dutch in the 


134 


The Transition to the Modern World 


seventeenth century, repeopled America and brought to it Eu¬ 
ropean civilization. Europe expanded into a Greater Europe 
beyond the ocean. 

In the Middle Ages the Mediterranean and the Baltic had 
been the principal highways of commerce. The discovery of 
Shifting of America, followed immediately by the opening of 
trade routes the Cape route to the Indies, shifted commercial 
activity frorn these inclosed seas to the Atlantic Ocean. Venice, 
Genoa, Hamburg, Liibeck, and Bruges gradually gave way, as 
trading centers, to Lisbon and Cadiz, Bordeaux and Cherbourg, 
Antwerp and Amsterdam, London and Liverpool. One may 
say, therefore, that the year 1492 inaugurated the Atlantic 
period of European history. 

The discovery of America revealed to Europeans a new source 
of the precious metals. The Spaniards soon secured large quan- 
i d tities of gold by plundering the Indians in Mexico 
production of and Peru of their stored-up wealth. The output 
th6 tais eCi0US s ^ ver muc h exceeded that of gold, as soon as 
the Spaniards began to work the wonderfully rich 
silver mines of Potosi in Bolivia. It is estimated that, by the 
end of the sixteenth century, the American mines had produced 
at least three times as much gold and silver as had been current 
in Europe at the beginning of the century. 

The Spaniards could not keep this new treasure. Having few 

industries themselves, they were obliged to send it out, as fast 

„ as they received it, in payment for their imports of 

Consequences 0 , . 

of the en- European goods. Spam acted as a huge sieve 

larged money through which the gold and silver of America en- 
supply 

tered all the countries of Europe. Money, now 
more plentiful, purchased far less than in former times; in other 
words, the prices of all commodities rose, wages advanced, and 
manufacturers and traders had additional capital to use in their 
undertakings. The Middle Ages suffered from the lack of 
sufficient money with which to do business; from the beginning 
of modern times the world has been better supplied, with the in¬ 
dispensable medium of exchange. 

America was much more than a treasury of the precious 


Reformation and Counter Reformation 135 


metals. Many commodities, hitherto unknown, soon found their 
way from the New World to the Old. Among these were maize, 
the potato, which, when cultivated in Europe, New com 
became the “bread of the poor,” chocolate and modities 
cocoa made from the seeds of the cacao tree, Peru- im P° rted 
vian bark, or quinine, so useful in malarial fevers, cochineal, 
the dye-woods of Brazil, and the mahogany of the West Indies. 
America also sent to Europe large supplies of cane-sugar, mo¬ 
lasses, fish, whale-oil, and furs. These new American products 
became common articles of consumption and so raised the stand¬ 
ard of living in European countries. 

The Atlantic Ocean formed henceforth, not only the commer¬ 
cial, but also the political center of the world. The Atlantic- 
facing countries, first Portugal and Spain, then Politica i 
Holland, France, and England, became the great effects of the 
powers of Europe. Their trade rivalries and dlscovenes 
contests for colonial possessions have been potent causes of 
European wars for the last four hundred years. 

The sixteenth century in Europe was the age of that revolt 
against the Roman Church called the Protestant Reformation. 
During this period, however, the Church won her victories over 
the American aborigines. What she lost of terri- Effects of the 
tory, wealth, and influence in Europe was offset discoveries 
by what she gained in America. Furthermore, the upon rellglon 
region now occupied by the United States furnished in the seven¬ 
teenth century an asylum from religious persecution, as was 
proved when Puritans settled in New England, Roman Catholics 
in Maryland, and Quakers in Pennsylvania. The vacant spaces 
of America offered plenty of room for all who would worship 
God in their own way. The New World became a refuge from 
the intolerance of the Old. 

28. Reformation and Counter Reformation 

The Reformation has a place beside the revival of learning and 
art, the development of science and invention, and Nature of the 
the progress of geographical discovery, among the Reformation 
great movements ushering in the modern world. It involved, 


136 The Transition to the Modern World 


as we shall learn, a decisive break with both the teachings of the 
Church and the authority of the Papacy. 

There were several causes of the Reformation. Politically, 
it expressed the opposition of European sovereigns to the secular 
P rt' l a d authorit y wielded by the Church. Having tri- 
economic umphed over feudalism, the sovereigns wished to 
causes of the bring the Church, as well, within their jurisdiction. 

They tried to restrict the privileges of ecclesiastical 
courts, to impose taxes on the clergy, as on their own subjects, 
and to dictate the appointment of bishops and abbots to office. 
The result was constant friction between Church and State in 
one European country after another. Economically, the Refor¬ 
mation voiced a protest, on the part of both upper and lower 
classes, against the increasing luxury and extravagance of the 
papal court. The protest rang loudest in Germany, where there 
was no strong king to prohibit the drain of money to Rome, 
as French and English rulers had done. 

The political and economic causes of the Reformation com¬ 
bined with those strictly religious in character. Thoughtful men 
Religious i n fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had criti- 
causes of the cized the worldliness of the Church, as reflected in 
Reformation b ves 0 f many of its officers, and had urged that 

even bishops, cardinals, and popes should imitate the poverty 
of the Apostles. Some reformers, such as John Wycliffe in Eng¬ 
land and John Huss in Bohemia, went much further and de¬ 
manded wholesale changes in Catholic belief and worship. The 
views of Wycliffe and Huss were now to be expressed in Germany 
during the sixteenth century by the real founder of the Reforma¬ 
tion, Martin Luther. 

Luther, who was a monk and a professor of theology in the 
University of Wittenberg, began his reforming career with an 
The Ninety- attack upon the indulgence system as found in Ger- 
five Theses many. An indulgence is a letter of pardon reliev¬ 
ing a truly penitent sinner from some or all of the penances 
(punishments) which the Church would otherwise impose upon 
him. Its benefits, according to Catholic teaching, are also ap¬ 
plied to the souls of the dead in purgatory. The pope granted 


Reformation and Counter Reformation 137 


indulgences to crusaders, pilgrims, and to those who contributed 
money for a pious object, such as the erection of a church or a 
convent. Many German princes opposed this method of rais¬ 
ing funds for the Church, because it took so much money out 
of their dominions. Luther condemned it on religious grounds, 
pointing out that common people, who could not understand 
the Latin in which indulgences were written, often thought that 
they wiped away the penalties of sin, even without true repent¬ 
ance. Luther also denied the efficacy of indulgences for souls 
in purgatory. These and other criticisms were set forth by 
him in ninety-five theses or propositions, which he offered to 
defend against all opponents. In accordance with the custom 
of medieval scholars, Luther posted the theses on the door of 
the church at Wittenberg, where all might see them. They 
were composed in Latin, but were at once translated into Ger¬ 
man, printed, and spread broadcast over Germany. Their 
effect was so great that before long the granting of indulgences 
in that country almost ceased. 

The pope, at first, had paid little attention to the controversy 
about indulgences, declaring it a “mere squabble of monks,” 
but he now issued a bull against Luther, ordering Diet of 
him to recant within sixty days or be excommuni- Worms, 1521 
cated. The papal bull did not frighten Luther or withdraw from 
him popular support. He burnt it in the market square of Wit¬ 
tenberg, in the presence of a concourse of students and towns¬ 
folk. This dramatic action deeply stirred all Germany. The 
pope then urged the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to put 
Luther under the ban of the empire. Charles was willing to 
comply, but the German princes insisted that Luther must not 
be condemned unheard. Luther, accordingly, was summoned 
before a great assembly (Diet) of princes and ecclesiastical dig¬ 
nitaries at Worms. Here he refused to retract anything he had 
written, unless his statements could be shown to contradict the 
Bible. “It is neither right nor safe to act against conscience,” 
Luther said. “God help me. Amen.” 

The Diet of Worms proclaimed Luther a heretic and an outlaw, 
and the pope excommunicated him. The support of powerful 


138 The Transition to the Modern World 


formed 
Religion ” 


friends enabled him, however, to defy both pope and emperor 
as long as he lived. He made a German translation of the 
Luther’s Bible, which the printing press soon multiplied in 

leadership thousands of copies, composed many fine hymns 
and a catechism, flooded the country with pamphlets against 
the Roman Church, and wrote innumerable letters to his ad¬ 
herents. Luther became in this way the leader, as well as the 
founder, of the German Reformation. 

The Reformation in Germany made a wide appeal. To 
patriotic Germans it seemed a revolt against a foreign power — 
The “ Re- the Italian Papacy. To men of pious mind it 
offered the attractions of a simple faith based 
directly on the Bible. Worldly minded princes 
saw in it an opportunity to despoil the Church of lands and 
revenues. Luther’s teachings, accordingly, found acceptance 
among many people. Priests married, monks left their monas¬ 
teries, and the “Reformed Religion” took the place of Roman 
Catholicism in most parts of northern and central Germany. 
South Germany, however, did not fall away from the pope and 
has remained Roman Catholic to the present time. 

Luther’s doctrines also spread into Scandinavian lands. 
The rulers of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden closed the mon- 
Lutheranism as teries and compelled the Roman Catholic bishops 
in Scandi- to surrender ecclesiastical property to the Crown. 

Lutheranism became henceforth the official religion 
of these three countries. 

The Reformation in Switzerland began with Huldreich 
Zwingli, a priest of Zurich. He was the contemporary, but 

not the disciple, of Luther. Zwingli denied the 
Calvinism . 

supremacy oi the pope and proclaimed the Scrip¬ 
tures as the sole rule of faith and conduct. Many of the Swiss 
cantons accepted his teachings and broke away from obedience 
to Rome. Another founder of Protestantism in Switzerland 
was the Frenchman John Calvin, who passed most of his life 
at Geneva. He translated the Bible into French, wrote com¬ 
mentaries on nearly all the Scriptural books, and set forth in 
his famous work, Institutes of the Christian Religion , the main 


Reformation and Counter Reformation 


i39 


principles of Protestant theology. Calvin’s influence was not 
confined to Geneva or even to Switzerland. The men whom 
he trained and on whom he set the stamp of his stern, earnest, 
God-fearing character spread Calvinism over a great part of 
western Europe. It became in Holland and Scotland the pre¬ 
vailing type of Protestantism, and in France and England it 
deeply affected the national life. The Puritans in the seven¬ 
teenth century carried Calvinism across the sea to New 
England, where it formed 
the dominant faith in co¬ 
lonial times. 

The Reformation in 
Germany and Switzerland 
started as a national and 
popular movement; in 
England it Beginning of 
began as the the English 
act of a des- Reformation 
potic sovereign, Henry 
VIII, the second king of 
the Tudor dynasty. He 
broke with the pope be¬ 
cause the latter would not 
consent to his divorce from 
his queen, Catherine of 
Aragon, who was the aunt 
of the Holy Roman Emperor and Spanish monarch, Charles V. 
Henry VIII finally obtained the desired divorce from an English 
court, and in defiance of the papal bull of excommunication 
married a pretty maid-in-waiting, named Anne Boleyn. The 
king’s next step was to secure from his subservient Parliament 
a series of laws abolishing the pope’s authority in England. An 
Act of Supremacy (1534) declared the English king to be “the 
only supreme head on earth of the Church of England,” with 
power to appoint all ecclesiastical officers and dispose of the 
papal revenues. The suppression of the monasteries and the 
appropriation of their wealth for himself and his favorites soon 



ZWINGLI 

After a painting by Hans Asper. 







140 The Transition to the Modern World 

followed this legislation. While Henry VIII thus separated 
England from the control of the Papacy, he remained Roman 
Catholic in belief to the day of his death. 

The Reformation made rapid progress in England during the 
reign of Henry’s son and successor, Edward VI. The young 
Completion of king’s guardian allowed reformers from the Conti- 
the English nent to come to England, and the doctrines of 
Reformation L u th e r, Zwingli, and Calvin were freely preached 
there. In order that religious services might be conducted in 
the language of the people, Archbishop Cranmer and his co¬ 
workers prepared the Book of Common Prayer . It consisted 
of translations into noble English of various parts of the old 
Latin service books. With some changes, it is still used in the 
Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of 
the United States. The short reign of Mary Tudor, daughter 
of Catherine of Aragon, was marked by a temporary setback 
to the Protestant cause. The queen prevailed on Parliament 
to secure a reconciliation with Rome. She also married her 
Roman Catholic cousin, Philip II of Spain, the son of Charles V. 
Mary now began a severe persecution of the Protestants. Many 
eminent reformers perished, among them Cranmer, the former 
archbishop. Mary died childless, after ruling about five years, 
and the crown passed to Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth. 
Under Elizabeth Anglicanism again replaced Roman Catholicism 
as the religion of England. 

The Reformation was practically completed before the close 
of the sixteenth century. In 1500 the Roman Church embraced 
Extent of all Europe west of Russia and the Balkan Penin- 
Protestantism su i a . By I 6 00 nearly half of its former subjects 
had renounced their allegiance. The greater part of Germany 
and Switzerland and all of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, 
England, Wales, and Scotland became independent of the 
Papacy. The unity of western Christendom, which had been 
preserved throughout the Middle Ages, thus disappeared and 
has not since been revived. 

The reformers agreed in substituting for the authority of 
popes and church councils the authority of the Bible. They 


Reformation and Counter Reformation 


141 


went back fifteen hundred years to the time of the Apostles 
and tried to restore what they believed to be apostolic Christi¬ 
anity. Hence they rejected such doctrines and Common 
practices as were supposed to have developed dur- features of 
ing the Middle Ages. These included belief in Protestantlsm 
purgatory, veneration of relics, invocation of saints, devotion 



Np(> R W A Y , j 


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Lutheran 


Calvinist. 

Anglican . . . . 
Roman Catholic 




Extent of the Reformation, 1524-1572 a.d. 


to the Virgin, indulgences, pilgrimages, and the greater number 
of the sacraments. The Reformation also abolished the mo¬ 
nastic system and priestly celibacy. The sharp distinction 
between clergy and laity disappeared; for priests married, lived 
among the people, and no longer formed a separate class. In 
general, Protestantism affirmed the ability of every man to 


































142 


The Transition to the Modem World 


find salvation without the aid of ecclesiastics. The Church 
was no longer the only “gate of heaven.” 

The Protestant denial of the authority of popes and church 
councils led inevitably to differences of opinion among the re- 
Protestant formers. There were various ways of interpreting 
sects Bible to which they appealed as the rule of 

faith and conduct. Consequently, Protestantism split up into 
many sects or denominations, and these have gone on multi¬ 
plying to the present day. Nearly all, however, are offshoots 
from the three main varieties of Protestantism (Lutheranism, 
Calvinism, and Anglicanism) which appeared in the sixteenth 
century. 

The break with Rome did not introduce religious liberty into 

Europe. Nothing was further from the mind of Luther, Calvin, 

and other reformers than the toleration of beliefs 
The Reforma- ... . . _ 

tion and free- unlike their own. I he early Protestant sects 

fh m °ht punished dissenters as zealously as the Roman 
Church punished heretics. Complete freedom of 
conscience and the right of private judgment in religion have 
been secured in most countries of Europe only within the last 
hundred years. 

The Reformation, however, did deepen the moral life of 
European peoples. The faithful Protestant or Roman Catholic 
The Reforma- tried to show by his conduct that his particular 
tion and belief made for better living than any other faith, 
morals The impulse to higher standards of morality, 

which we owe to the Reformation, is still felt at the present 
day. 

The rapid spread of Protestantism soon brought about a 
Catholic Counter Reformation in those parts of Europe which 
The reform- remained faithful to Rome. The popes now turned 
ing popes from the cultivation of Renaissance art and litera¬ 
ture to the defense of their threatened faith. They made 
needed changes in the papal court and appointed to ecclesiastical 
offices men distinguished for virtue and learning. This reform 
of the Papacy dates from the time of Paul III, who became pope 

in 1534. 


Reformation and Counter Reformation 143 

The most important agency of the Counter Reformation was 
the Society of Jesus, founded by a Spanish soldier and noble¬ 
man, Ignatius Loyola. The Jesuits, as their Prot- The Society 
estant opponents called them, formed an army of of J esus 
spiritual soldiers, living under the strictest obedience to their 
head, or general, and fighting for the Church against “ heretics.” 
They served as preachers, confessors, teachers, and missionaries. 
Their activities in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and other coun¬ 
tries did much to roll back the rising tide of Protestantism in 
Europe. The Jesuits also invaded the lands which the great 
maritime discoveries had laid open to European enterprise. 
In India, China, the East Indies, the Philippines, Africa, and 
the two Americas their converts from heathenism were num¬ 
bered by hundreds of thousands. 

Another agency in the Counter Reformation was the great 
Church Council summoned by Pope Paul III. The council 
met at Trent, on the borders of Germany and Italy. Council of 
It continued, with intermissions, for nearly twenty Trent, 1545- 
years. The Council of Trent made no essential 1563 
changes in Roman Catholic doctrines, which remained as theolo¬ 
gians had set them forth in the Middle Ages. It declared that 
the tradition of the Church possessed equal authority with the 
Bible and reaffirmed the supremacy of the pope over Christen¬ 
dom. The council also passed decrees forbidding the sale of 
ecclesiastical offices and requiring bishops and other prelates 
to attend strictly to their duties. 

Still another agency of the Counter Reformation was the 
Inquisition. This was a system of church courts for the dis¬ 
covery and punishment of heretics. Such courts The Inquisi- 
had been set up in the Middle Ages. After the tlon 
Council of Trent they redoubled their activity, especially in 
Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. The Inquisition probably 
contributed to the disappearance of Protestantism in Italy. 
In the Netherlands, where it worked with great severity, it 
only aroused exasperation and hatred and helped to provoke 
a successful revolt of the Dutch people. The Spaniards, on the 
other hand, approved of the methods of the Inquisition and 


144 


The Transition to the Modern World 


supported its activities. It was not abolished in Spain until 
the nineteenth century. 

29 . The Wars of Religion 

The young man who as Holy Roman Emperor presided at the 
trial of Luther before the Diet of Worms had assumed the im¬ 
perial crown only two years previously. A name- 
Charles V, F J >. 1 . i xr u 

Holy Roman sake of Charlemagne, Charles V, held sway over 

Emperor, dominions even more extensive than those which 
1519-1556 , tt 

had belonged to the Frankish king. He pos¬ 
sessed Spain, the Two Sicilies, Sardinia, the Netherlands, 
Austria, and the Spanish colonies. Charles V, as a devout Ro¬ 
man Catholic, felt no sympathy with Lutheranism and perhaps 
might have extinguished it, had he undertaken the task promptly.. 
A revolt in Spain and wars with the French and the Ottoman 
Turks led, however, to his long absence from Germany and 
kept him from proceeding effectively against the Lutherans 
until it was too late. The emperor, finally, brought Spanish 
troops into Germany, but the Lutheran princes were now too 
strong for him. Civil war raged until 1555, when both sides 
agreed to the Peace of Augsburg. It was a compromise. The 
ruler of each state was to. decide whether his subjects should be 
Lutherans or Catholics. The peace by no means established 
religious toleration, since all Germans had to believe as their 
prince believed. However, it recognized Lutheranism as a 
legal religion and ended the attempts to crush the German 
Reformation. 

Soon after the Peace of Augsburg, Charles V determined to 
abdicate his many crowns and seek the repose of a monastery. 
Philip II, king The P* an was duly carried into effect. His brother 
of Spain, succeeded to the title of Holy Roman Emperor and 
the Austrian territories, while his son, Philip II, 
ruled over Spain and the Spanish possessions in Europe and 
the New World. Philip II aimed to make his country the 
foremost state in the world and to secure the triumph of Roman 
Catholicism over Protestantism. Though he had vast posses¬ 
sions, enormous revenues, mighty fleets, and armies reputed 


The Wars of Religion 145 

the best of the age, he could not dominate western Europe. 
His first defeat was in the Netherlands. 

The Netherlands were too near Germany not to be affected 
by the Reformation. Lutheranism soon appeared there, only to 
encounter the hostility of Charles V, who intro- p rotestantism 
duced the terrors of the Inquisition. Many in the Nether- 
heretics were burned at the stake, or beheaded, or lands 
buried alive. But there is no seed like martyrs’ blood. The 
number of Protestants swelled, rather than lessened, especially 
after Calvinism entered the Netherlands. 

In spite of the cruel treatment of heretics by Charles V, .the 
Netherlanders remained loyal to the. emperor, because he had 
been born and reared among them and always Philip n and 
considered their country as his own. Philip II, the Nether- 
a Spaniard by birth and sympathies, seemed to lands 
them, however, only a foreign master. The new ruler did noth¬ 
ing to conciliate the people, but governed them despotically 
through Spanish officials supported by Spanish garrisons. 
Arbitrary taxes were levied, cities and nobles were deprived of 
their cherished privileges, and the activity of the Inquisition 
was redoubled. Philip intended to exercise in the Netherlands 
the same absolute power enjoyed by him in Spain. His policies 
soon produced a revolt of both Roman Catholics and Protestants 
against Spanish oppression. 

The southern provinces of the Netherlands, mainly Roman 
Catholic in population, did not long continue their resistance. 
They effected a reconciliation with Philip and separation of 
continued for over two centuries to be a possession the Nether- 
first of Spain and subsequently of Austria. Mod- lands 
ern Belgium has grown out of them. The seven northern prov¬ 
inces, where Dutch was the language' and Protestantism the 
religion, came together in 1579 in the Union of Utrecht. Two 
years later they declared their independence of Spain. In this 
way the republic of the United Netherlands, or simply “Hol¬ 
land,” took its place among European nations. The struggle 
of Holland against Spain forms one of the notable episodes in 
history. The Dutch, under a resourceful leader, William, Prince 


146 The Transition to the Modern World 


of Orange, better known as William the Silent, fought stubbornly 
behind the walls of their cities and on more than-one occasion 
repelled the enemy by cutting the dikes and letting in the sea. 
Philip’s successor consented in 1609 to a twelve years’ truce 
with the Dutch, but their freedom was not recognized officially 
by Spain until many years later. 

The attempt of Philip II to conquer England, a stronghold of 
Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth, likewise ended disas- 
Philip II and trously. It must be admitted that Philip could 
Queen plead strong justification for his hostility. Eliza- 

Elizabeth b e th allowed English “sea-dogs,” such as Sir 

Francis Drake, to plunder Spanish colonies and seize Spanish 
vessels laden with the treasures of the New World. Moreover, 
she aided the rebellious Dutch, at first secretly and at length 
openly, in their struggle against Spain. Philip put up with 
these aggressions for many years, but finally came to the con¬ 
clusion that he could never subdue the Netherlands or end the 
piracy and smuggling in Spanish America without first conquer¬ 
ing England. Philip seems to have believed that, as soon as a 
Spanish army landed on the island, the Roman Catholics there 
would rally to his cause. But the Spanish king never had a 
chance to verify his belief; the decisive battle took place on 
the sea. 

In 1588 Philip sent the “Invincible Armada,” as it was called, 
against England. The Spanish vessels, though somewhat 
Defeat of the larger than those of the English, were inferior in 
Armada, 1588 number, speed, and gunnery to their adversaries, 
while the Spanish officers, mostly unused to the sea, were no 
match for men like Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, the best 
mariners of the age. The Armada suffered severely in a nine- 
day fight in the Channel, and many vessels which escaped 
the English guns met shipwreck off the Scotch and Irish coasts. 
Less than half of the Armada returned in safety to Spain. Eng¬ 
land in the later Middle Ages had been an important naval 
power. During the sixteenth century, however, she was over¬ 
matched by Spain, especially after the annexation of Portugal, 
by Philip II, added the naval forces of that country to the Span- 


The Wars of Religion 


i47 


ish fleets. 1 The defeat of the Armada showed that a new power 
had arisen to claim the supremacy of the ocean. 

The French Protestants, or Huguenots, naturally accepted 
the doctrines of Calvin, who was himself a Frenchman and whose 
books were written in the French language. The Hugue _ 
Though bitterly persecuted, the Huguenots gained nots 
a large following, especially among the prosperous middle class 
of the towns. Many nobles also became Huguenots, some¬ 
times because of religious conviction, but often because the new 



The Spanish Armada in the English Channel 

One of a series of engravings of a tapestry (now destroyed) in the House of Lords. In the 
left foreground Drake’s ship is shown cutting out a Spanish man-of-war. 


movement offered them an opportunity to recover their feudal 
independence and to plunder the estates of the Church. 

During most of the second half of the sixteenth century, fierce 
conflicts raged in France between the Roman Catholics and 
the Huguenots. Philip II aided the former, and The Hugue- 
Queen Elizabeth gave some assistance to the latter. not wars 
France suffered terribly in the struggle, not only from the 
constant fighting, but also from the pillage, burnings, and other 

1 Portugal separated from Spain in 1640 and has since remained an independent 
state. 

















148 The Transition to the Modern World 


barbarities in which both sides indulged. The Huguenot wars 
ended during the reign of Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon 
kings. Though originally a Protestant, he became a Roman 
Catholic, in order to conciliate the great majority of his subjects. 

King Henry did not break with the Huguenots, however. He 
now issued in their interest the celebrated Edict of Nantes. The 
Edict of Huguenots henceforth were to enjoy freedom of 
Nantes, 1598 private worship everywhere in France, and free¬ 
dom to worship publicly in a large number of villages and towns. 
Only Roman Catholic services, however, might be held in Paris 
and at the royal court. The edict did not grant complete reli-, 
gious liberty, but it marked an important step in that direction. 
A great European state had recognized for the first time the 
principle that two rival faiths might exist peaceably side by 
side within its borders. 

The Peace of Augsburg did not form a complete settlement 
of the religious question in Germany. There was still room 
Religious f° r fitter disputes, especially over the ownership 
antagonism in of Church property which had been secularized 
in the course of the Reformation. Furthermore, 
the peace recognized only Roman Catholics and Lutherans and 
allowed no rights whatever to the large body of Calvinists. The 
failure of Lutherans and Calvinists to cooperate weakened 
German Protestantism just at the period when the Counter 
Reformation inspired Roman Catholicism with fresh energy 
and enthusiasm. 

Politics, as well as religion, also made for dissension. The 
Roman Catholic party relied for support on the Holy Roman 
Political emperors, who wished to unite the German states 
friction in under their control. The Protestant princes, on 
Germany the other hand, wanted to become independent 
sovereigns. Hence they resented all efforts to extend the im¬ 
perial authority over them. 

Religious antagonism and political friction together produced 
the Thirty Years’ War. It was not so much a single conflict in 
Germany as a series of conflicts, which ultimately involved 
nearly all western Europe. At one time Sweden took a promi- 


The Wars of Religion 


149 


nent part in the struggle, under her heroic king, Gustavus 
Adolphus, who came to the aid of the Protestant princes against 
the Holy Roman Emperor. After the death of Thirty Years’ 
Gustavus Adolphus in battle, the German Protes- War, 1618- 
tan ts found an ally, strangely enough, in Cardinal 1648 
Richelieu, the all-powerful minister of the French king. Riche¬ 



lieu entered the struggle in order to humble Austria and extend 
the boundaries of France toward the Rhine. The Holy Roman 
Emperor had to yield at last and consented to the treaties of 
peace signed at two cities in the province of Westphalia. 

The Peace of Westphalia ended the long series of wars which 
followed the Reformation. It practically settled the religious 
































The Transition to the Modern World 


150 

question, for it put Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvin¬ 
ists in Germany all on the same footing. Henceforth the idea 
Peace of that re hgi° us differences should be settled by force 
Westphalia, gradually passed away from the minds of men. The 
1648 territorial readjustments made at this time have 

deeply affected the subsequent history of Europe. France 
received from the Holy Roman Empire a large part of Alsace, 
in this way obtaining a foothold on the upper Rhine. She also 
secured the recognition of her claims to the bishoprics of Metz, 
Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine. Sweden gained the western 
half of Pomerania and the bishopric of Bremen. These pos¬ 
sessions enabled her to control the mouths of the rivers Oder, 
Elbe, and Weser, which were important arteries of German 
commerce. Brandenburg — the future kingdom of Prussia — 
acquired eastern Pomerania and several bishoprics, thus be¬ 
coming the leading state in North Germany. The inde¬ 
pendence of Switzerland and of the United Netherlands 
was also recognized. 

30 . European Politics 

The process of state-making in Europe, which started in the 
Middle Ages, went on even more rapidly during the fifteenth 
Western and sixteenth centuries. Many European coun- 

Europe tries now began to assume the form and to acquire 

the position which they hold at the present time. The map of 
western Europe by 1648, the date of the Peace of Westphalia, 
was very much the same as to-day. The British Isles had a 
common ruler, but Scotland continued to be a separate kingdom 
and Ireland was only loosely joined to England. The Iberian 
Peninsula included the two kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. 
Both were declining in wealth, population, and political im¬ 
portance. France had nearly her existing boundaries, except 
on the east and northeast toward the Rhine. Switzerland and 
the United Netherlands (Holland) were independent confeder¬ 
ations. The Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) remained, how¬ 
ever, a province of Spain. 

The map of central Europe in 1648 was very unlike what it is 



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European Politics 


i5i 

to-day. Most of Germany was then divided into more than 
three hundred states and feudal domains. Many of them were 
free to coin money, raise armies, make war, and ne- Central 
gotiate treaties without consulting the Holy Roman Europe 
Emperor. The imperial title and dignity were now hereditary 
in the Austrian (Hapsburg) family. If they meant little, the 
Hapsburg ruler, as archduke of Austria, king of Bohemia, king 
of Hungary, and lord of many smaller territories, held, neverthe¬ 
less, a proud position in Europe. Italy, like Germany, presented 
a picture of disunion. The northern part of the peninsula con¬ 
tained the independent duchy of Savoy, the duchy of Milan 
(a Spanish possession), the republics of Venice and Genoa, and 
the little states of Parma, Modena, and Lucca. Central Italy 
included the duchy of Tuscany and the States of the Church. 
The kingdom of the Two Sicilies belonged to Spain. 

There were only two Scandinavian kingdoms in 1648, for 
Norway was joined to Denmark. Sweden, then a first-class 
power, held sway over Finland and adjacent terri- Northern and 
tories. The duchy of East Prussia belonged to eastern 
the Elector of Brandenburg. The huge kingdom Europe 
of Poland, which had united with the grand duchy of Lithuania 
in the preceding century, stretched from the Baltic almost to 
the Black Sea. Farther east lay Russia, so backward in civiliza¬ 
tion as to be scarcely a European country. 

The Ottoman Turks in 1648 ruled in southeastern Europe. 
They occupied Greece, all the Balkan Peninsula except Monte¬ 
negro, most of Hungary, and the territory now Southeastern 
included in Rumania and part of southern Russia. Europe 
Never had the shadow of the crescent loomed more darkly over 
Europe. 

Most European states in the seventeenth century were 
absolute monarchies. Absolutism was as common then as 
democracy is now. The rulers of Europe, having Absolutism 
triumphed over the feudal nobility of the Middle 
Ages, proclaimed themselves to be the sole source of authority. 
They posed as sovereigns who held their power, not from the 
choice or consent of their subjects, but by the “grace of God.” 


152 


The Transition to the Modern World 


The theory of divine right first took shape during the 
Middle Ages, out of the controversies between the Papacy and 
Divine the secular rulers of of Europe. The popes tried 

ri § ht to enforce a claim to the obedience of all Christians, 

as well in temporal as in spiritual matters. Emperors and kings, 
resenting what they regarded as papal interference in politics, 
then set up a counter-claim for the divine origin of the imperial 
and royal power. During the Reformation Luther and his fol¬ 
lowers also exalted the authority of the State against the au¬ 
thority of the Church, which they condemned and rejected. 
Providence, they argued, had never sanctioned the Papacy, but 
Providence had really ordained the State and had placed over 
it a ruler whom it was a religious duty to obey. The same 
theory of divine right found acceptance among Anglicans, for 
the Church of England from the first was a religion established 
and supported by the State. 

A very different theory found acceptance in those parts of 
Europe where Calvinism prevailed. In his Institutes , one of 
Calvinism and the most widely read books of the age, Calvin 
popular sov- declares that magistrates and parliaments are the 
guardians of popular liberty “by the ordination of 
God.” 1 Calvin’s adherents, developing this statement, argued 
that rulers derive their authority from the people and that those 
who abuse it may be deposed by the will of the people. The' 
Christian duty of resistance to royal tyranny became a cardinal 
principle of Calvinism among the French Huguenots, the Dutch, 
the Scotch, and most of the American colonists of the seven¬ 
teenth century. We shall now see how influential it was in 
seventeenth-century England. 

Studies 

i. Distinguish and define the three terms, “Renaissance,” “Revival of Learn¬ 
ing,” and “Humanism.” 2. Why did the Renaissance begin as “ an Italian event ” ? 

3. Why did the classical scholar come to be regarded as the only educated man? 

4. “Next to the discovery of the New World, the recovery of the ancient world 
is the second landmark that divides us from the Middle Ages and marks the transi¬ 
tion to modem life.” Comment on this statement. 5. Why was the revival of 

1 Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV, xx, 31. 


European Politics 


i53 


Greek more important in the history of civilization than the revival of Latin? 
6. Show that printing was an “emancipating force.” 7. How did the discoveries 
of Galileo and Kepler confirm the Copernican theory? 8. Why has Marco Polo 
been called the “Columbus of the East Indies”? 9. How did Vasco da 
Gama complete the work of Prince Henry the Navigator? 10. Show that 
Lisbon in the sixteenth century was the commercial successor of Venice. 
11. Explain this statement: “The American isthmus was discovered be¬ 
cause an Asiatic one existed; in trying to avoid Suez the early mariners ran 
afoul of Darien.” 12. On an outline map indicate those parts of the world 
known in the time of Columbus (before 1492). 13. On an outline map indicate the 

voyages of discovery of Vasco da Gama, Columbus (first vdyage), Magellan, and 
John Cabot. 14. Show that the three words “gospel, glory, and gold” sum up the 
principal motives of European colonization in the sixteenth century. 15. Why is 
Roman law followed in all Spanish-American countries? 16. In what parts of the 
world is Spanish still the common language? 17. “The opening of the Atlantic 
to continuous exploration is the most momentous step in the history of man’s oc¬ 
cupation of the earth.” Does this statement seem to be justified? 18. Give three 
important reasons for the lessened influence of the Roman Church at the opening 
of the sixteenth century. 19. On the map, page 141, trace the geographical extent 
of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. 20. Why did the reformers in each 
country take special pains to translate the Bible into the vernacular? 21. Mention 
some differences between the Society of Jesus and earlier monastic orders. 22. On 
an outline map indicate the European countries ruled by Charles V. 23. Show 
that political, as well as religious, motives affected the revolt of the Netherlands, the 
Huguenot wars, and the Thirty Years’ War. 24. Compare the Edict of Nantes 
with the Peace of Augsburg. 25. On an outline map indicate the principal terri¬ 
torial changes made by the Peace of Westphalia. 




CHAPTER V 


CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY IN ENGLAND, 1603 - 1714 1 


31 . Absolutism of the Stuarts, 1603-1642 


Absolutism in England dated from the time of the Tudors. 
Henry VII humbled the nobles, while Henry VIII and Elizabeth 
Tudor ab- brought the Church into dependence on the Crown, 
soiutism These three sovereigns, though despotic, were 
excellent rulers and were popular with the influential middle 
class in town and country. The Tudors gave England order 
and prosperity, if not political liberty. 

The English Parliament in the thirteenth century had be¬ 
come a body representative of the different estates of the 
Parliament realm, and in the fourteenth century it had sepa- 
under the rated into the two houses of Lords and Commons. 

Parliament enjoyed considerable authority at 
this time. The kings, who were in continual need of money, 
often summoned it, sought its advice upon important ques¬ 
tions, and readily listened to its requests. The despotic Tudors, 
on the other hand, made Parliament their servant. Henry 
VII called it together on only five occasions during his reign; 
Henry VIII persuaded or frightened it into doing anything 
he pleased; and Elizabeth consulted it as infrequently as 
possible. Parliament under the Tudors did not abandon 
its old claims to a share in the government, but it had little 
chance to exercise them. 


The death of Elizabeth in 1603 ended the Tudor dynasty and 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xxv, “Char¬ 
acters and Episodes of the Great Rebellion”; chapter xxvi, “Oliver Cromwell”; 
chapter xxvii, “English Life and Manners under the Restoration.” Webster, 
Historical Source Book, No. 4, “Petition of Right, 1628”; No. 6, “instrument 
of Government, 1653”; No. 7, “Habeas Corpus Act, 1679”; No. 8, “Bill of 
Rights, 1689”; No. 9, “Act of Settlement, 1701.” 


Absolutism of the Stuarts 


i55 


placed James I, 1 the first of the Stuarts, on the English throne. 
England and Scotland were now joined in a j ames x 
personal union, though each country retained its king, 
own Parliament, laws, and established Church. The 1603-1625 
new king was well described by a contemporary as the “wisest 
fool in Christendom.” He had a good mind and abundant 
learning, but throughout his reign he showed an utter inability 
to win either the esteem or the affection of his subjects. This 
was a misfortune, for the English had now grown weary of 
despotism and wanted freedom. They were not prepared to 
tolerate in James, an alien, many things which they had over¬ 
looked in “Good Queen Bess.” 

One of the most fruitful sources of discord between James 
and the English people was his exalted conception of mon¬ 
archy. The Tudors, indeed, claimed to rule by James I on 
divine right, but James went further and argued dlvme n s ht 
for divine hereditary right. Providence, he declared, had 
chosen the principle of 



heredity in order to fix the ft. 
succession to the throne, mi 


This principle, being divine, 
lay beyond the power of 
man to alter. Whether 
the king was fit or unfit to 
rule, Parliament might not 


Gold Coin of James I 

The first coin to bear the legend “ Great Britain.” 


change the succession, de¬ 
pose a sovereign, or limit his authority in any way. James 
rather neatly summarized his views in a Latin epigram, a deo rex , 
a rege lex — “the king is from God, and law is from the king.” 

The extreme pretensions of James encountered much op¬ 
position from Parliament. That body felt little sympathy for 
a ruler who proclaimed himself the source of all Parliament 
law. When James, always extravagant and a poor and James 1 
financier, came before it for money, Parliament insisted on its 
right to withhold supplies until grievances were redressed. 

1 James VI of Scotland ( 1567 - 1625 ). His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was a 
granddaughter of Henry VII, the first of the Tudors. 


156 Constitutional Monarchy in England 

James would not yield, and got along as best he could by levy¬ 
ing customs duties, selling titles of nobility, and imposing 
excessive fines, in spite of the protests of Parliament. This 
situation continued to the end of the king’s reign. 

A religious controversy helped to embitter the dispute be¬ 
tween James and Parliament. The king, who was a devout 
Anglican, made himself very unpopular with 
Puritanism p ur jt anSj as the reformers within the Church 

of England were called. The Puritans had at first no intention 
of separating from the national or established Church, but 

they wished to “pu¬ 
rify” it of certain 
customs which the)' 
described as “Rom¬ 
ish.” Among these 
were the use of the 
surplice, of the ring 
in the marriage ser¬ 
vice, and of the sign 
of the cross in bap¬ 
tism. Some Puritans 
wanted to get rid of 
the Book of Common 
Prayer altogether. 
Since the Puritans had a large majority in the House of Com¬ 
mons, it was inevitable that the parliamentary struggle against 
Stuart absolutism should assume in part a religious character. 

The political and religious difficulties which marked the 
reign of James I did not disappear when his son, Charles I, 
Charles I came to the throne. Charles was a true Stuart 
king, 1625- in his devotion to absolutism and divine right. 

Almost immediately he began to quarrel with 
Parliament. When that body withheld supplies, Charles 
resorted to forced loans from the wealthy and even imprisoned 
a number of persons who refused to contribute. Such arbi¬ 
trary acts showed plainly that Charles would play the tyrant 
if he could. 










Absolutism of the Stuarts 157 



London Tradesmen 


After a broadside of 1647 in the British Museum, London. 


The king’s attitude at last led Parliament to a bold assertion 
of its authority. It now presented to Charles the celebrated 
Petition of Right. One of the most important Petition of 
clauses provided that loans without parliamentary Rl s ht > 1628 
sanction should be considered illegal. Another clause de¬ 
clared that no one should be arrested or imprisoned except 






























158 Constitutional Monarchy in England 


according to the law of the land. The Petition thus repeated 
and reinforced some of the leading principles of Magna Carta. 
The people of England, speaking this time through their elected 
representatives, asserted once more their right to limit the 
power of kings. 

Charles signed the Petition, as the only means of securing 
parliamentary consent to taxation; but he had no intention of 
Personal rule ^serving it. For the next eleven years he man- 
of Charles I, aged to govern without calling Parliament in 
1629-1640 session. The conduct of affairs during this period 
lay largely in the hands of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards 

earl of Strafford, and 
William Laud, who later 
became archbishop of Can¬ 
terbury. The king made 
these two men his prin¬ 
cipal advisers and through 
them carried on his des¬ 
potic rule. Arbitrary 
courts, which tried cases 
without a jury, punished 
jfg those who resisted the 
/ '’S - \ . / / / r oyal will. A rigid censor¬ 

ship of the press prevented 
any expression of popular 
discontent. Public meet¬ 
ings were suppressed as 
seditious riots. Even pri¬ 
vate gatherings were dan¬ 
gerous, for the king had swarms of spies to report disloyal acts 
or utterances. 

Since Charles ruled without a Parliament, he had to adopt 
all sorts of devices to fill his treasury. One of these was the 
John Hamp- levying of “ship-money.” According to an old 
“Thip- d custom, seaboard towns and counties had been 
money ” required to provide ships or money for the 
royal navy. Charles revived this custom and extended 



John Hampden 

After the bust in the National Portrait 
Gallery, London. 


Absolutism of the Stuarts 


i59 


it to towns and counties lying inland. It seemed clear that 
the king meant to impose a permanent tax on all England with¬ 
out the assent of Parliament. The demand for “ship-money” 
aroused much opposition, and John Hampden, a wealthy 
squire of Buckinghamshire, refused to pay the twenty shillings 
levied on his estate. Hampden was tried before a court of the 
royal judges and was convicted by a bare majority. He be¬ 
came, however, a popular hero. 



Execution of the Earl of Strafford 

After a contemporary print. The Tower of London is seen in the background. 


Archbishop Laud, the king’s chief agent in ecclesiastical 

matters, detested Puritanism and aimed to root it out from the 

Anglican Church. He put no Puritans to death, Laud > s ec _ 

but he sanctioned cruel punishments of those who clesiastical 

Dolicv 

would not conform to the established religion. 

While the restrictions on Puritans were increased, those af¬ 
fecting Roman Catholics were relaxed. Many people thought 
that Charles, through Laud and the bishops, was preparing to 
lead the Church of England back to Rome. They therefore 















160 Constitutional Monarchy in England 


opposed the king on religious grounds, as well as for political 
reasons. 

But the personal rule of Charles was now drawing to an end. 
In 1637 the king, supported by Archbishop Laud, tried to in- 
The Long troduce a modified form of the English prayer 

Parliament, book into Scotland. The Scotch, Calvinistic to 

the core, drew up a national oath, or Covenant, 
by which they bound themselves to resist any attempt to 
change their religion. Rebellion quickly passed into open war, 
and the Covenanters invaded northern England. Charles was 
then obliged to summon Parliament in session. It met in 1640 
and did not formally dissolve until twenty years later. Hence 
it came to be known as the Long Parliament. 

The Long Parliament no sooner assembled than it assumed 
the conduct of government. The leaders, including John 
Reforms of Hampden, John Pym, and Oliver Cromwell, 

the Long openly declared that the House of Commons, and 

Parliament no j. king, possessed supreme authority in the 
state. Parliament began by sending Strafford and subse¬ 
quently Laud to the scaffold and by abolishing the arbitrary 
courts. It forbade the imposition of “ship-money’’ and other 
irregular taxes. It also took away the king’s right of dissolv¬ 
ing Parliament at his pleasure and ordered that at least one 
parliamentary session should be held every three years. These 
measures stripped the Crown of the despotic powers acquired 
by the Tudors and the Stuarts. 


32. Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution, 1642-1649 

The Long Parliament thus far had acted along the line of 
reformation rather than revolution. Had Charles been content 
to accept the new arrangements, there would have 
been little more trouble. But the proud and im¬ 
perious king was only watching his chance to strike 
a blow at Parliament. Taking advantage of 
some differences of opinion among its members, Charles sum¬ 
moned his soldiers, marched to Westminster, and demanded 


Outbreak of 
the Puritan 
Revolution, 
1642 


Oliver Cromwell and the Civil War 


161 



Dunbar 
■on —1650 


Edinburgh 


lasgow 


Philiphaugh 


Mull of y 
Kin tyre If 


Fiw/Brestoh? 
^^1648^. 

Muncheger^ 


ainsbprough 


ilmhigto; 


«-b Newark 

•Npttmgha m'v 


to Lichfield;/// 
. Birmingham/ 


yfflynAi 

-ofniby^House 


it ester 

1051 


t, Bri'l 

f.V, Oxford 
.Gloucester 


oy4vLoTiddn' 


Bristol 


BatiP 0 / 

Round way down 


o Scone 


ENGLAND 
AND WALES 


ISLE 


THE CIVIL WARS 
OF THE 17TH CENTUKT 
Scale of English Miles 


0 10 20 30 60 

EXPLANATION 


S —T^rrCariis 1 -oiSS^x Parts held by Charles 1. 

if .<3^ Tat the end of 1643 


Parts held by Parliament V/////A 


-A Scarborough 


ISLE OF 
MAN 


11 

R. Humber 


s angl£^ea) 


^ Cardigan^ 
i> Day f 

O / 


• ColcJiester 


Pembroke 


H. Thames 


Bristol Channel 


37? jv^wporr 
Carisbrook Castle 


ISLE OF 
Wight 


Portland Bill 


Longitude West 


rCTtRS.E nCRS .BOSTON 


from Greenwich 


0 Longitude East 






























162 Constitutional Monarchy in England 


the surrender of five leaders, including Pym and Hampden. 
Warned in time, they made their escape, and Charles did not 
find them in the chamber of the Commons. “Well, I see all 
the birds are flown,” he exclaimed, and walked out baffled. 
The king’s attempt to intimidate the Commons was a grave 
blunder. It showed beyond doubt that he would resort to 
force, rather than bend his neck to Parliament. Both Charles 
and Parliament now began to gather troops and prepare for 
the inevitable conflict. 

The opposing parties seemed to be very evenly matched. 
Around the king rallied nearly all the nobles, the Anglican 
“Cavaliers” c l er gy> ^ Roman Catholics, a majority of the 
and “Round- “squires,” or country gentry, and the members 
of the universities. The royalists received the 
name of “Cavaliers.” The parliamentarians, or “Round- 
heads,” 1 were mostly recruited from the trading classes in the 
towns and the small landowners in the country. The working 
people remained as a rule indifferent and took little part in 
the struggle. 

Both Pym and Hampden died in*the second year of the war, 
and henceforth the leadership of the parliamentarians fell to 
Oliver Oliver Cromwell. He was a country gentleman 

Cromwell, from the east of England, and Hampden’s cousin. 
1599-1658 Cromwell represented the university of Cambridge 
in the Long Parliament and displayed there great audacity in 
opposing the government. An unfriendly critic at this time 
describes “his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice 
sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervor.” 
Though a zealous Puritan, who believed himself to be the 
chosen agent of the Lord, Cromwell was not an ascetic. He 
hunted, hawked, played bowls and other games, had an ear 
for music, and valued art and learning. In public life he showed 
himself a statesman of much insight and a military genius. 

Fortune favored the royalists, until Cromwell assumed com¬ 
mand of the parliamentary forces. To him was due the for- 

1 So called, because some of them wore closely cropped hair, in contrast to the 
flowing locks of the “Cavaliers.” 


Oliver Cromwell and the Civil War 


163 



mation of a cavalry regiment of “honest, sober Tfae « Iron 
Christians,” whose watchwords were texts from sides” and 
Scripture and who charged in battle singing psalms. d "p, ew 
These “Ironsides,” as Cromwell said, “had the 
fear of God before them and made some conscience of what 
they did.” They were so successful that Parliament permitted 


Interior of Westminster Hall 

Next to the Tower and the Abbey, Westminster Hall, adjoining the Houses of Parliament, 
is the most historic building in London. The hall was begun by William Rufus in 1097, 
and was enlarged by his successors. Richard II in 1397 added the great oak roof, which has 
lasted to this day. Here were held the trials of Strafford and Charles I. 

Cromwell to reorganize a large part of the army into the “New 
Model,” a body of professional, highly disciplined soldiers. 
The “New Model” defeated Charles decisively at the battle of 
Naseby, near the center of England (1645). Charles then sur¬ 
rendered to the Scotch, who soon turned him over to Parliament. 

Military operations were now over, but the political situ¬ 
ation remained still in doubt. The Puritans by this time 
had divided into two rival sects. The Presby- p res byterians 
terians wished to make the Church of England, and 
like that of Scotland, Presbyterian in faith and Inde P endents 
worship. Through their control of Parliament, they were able 














164 Constitutional Monarchy in England 

to pass acts doing away with bishops, forbidding the use of the 
Book of Common Prayer , and requiring every one to accept 
Presbyterian doctrines. The other Puritan sect, known as 
Independents, 1 felt that religious beliefs should not be a matter 
of compulsion. They rejected both Anglicanism and Presby¬ 
terianism and desired to set up churches of their own, where 
they might worship as seemed to them right. The Inde¬ 
pendents had the powerful backing of Cromwell and the “New 
Model,” so that the stage was set for a quarrel between Parlia¬ 
ment and the army. 

King Charles, though a prisoner in the hands of his enemies, 
hoped to profit by their divisions. The Presbyterian majority 
“Pride’s in the House of Commons was willing to restore 

Purge,” the king, provided he would give his assent to 

the establishment of Presbyterianism in England. 
But the army wanted no reconciliation with the captive monarch 
and at length took matters into its own hand. A party of 
soldiers, under the command of a Colonel Pride, excluded the 
Presbyterian members from the floor of the House, leaving the 
Independents alone to conduct the government. This action 
is known as “Pride’s Purge.” Cromwell approved of it, and 
from this time he became the real ruler of England. 

The “Rump,” as the remnant of the House of Commons 
was contemptuously called, immediately brought the king 
Execution of before a High Court of Justice composed of his 
Charles I, bitterest enemies. He refused to acknowledge 

the right of the court to try him and made no 
defense whatever. Charles was speedily convicted and sen¬ 
tenced to be beheaded, “as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and 
public enemy to the good of the people.” He met death with 
quiet dignity and courage on a scaffold erected in front of White¬ 
hall Palace in London. The king’s execution went far beyond 
the wishes of most Englishmen; “cruel necessity” formed 
its only justification; but it established once for all in England 
the principle that rulers are responsible to their subjects. 


1 Also called Separatists, and later known as Congregationalists. 


The Commonwealth and the Protectorate 165 



k ^' 

r\ a w 

%ilP* 


Dundalk 


tpM 

^JM 

wm 


Limerick 


l yP Ki llarney 


iefistown 


H The English Pale (Time of Henry VIII) 


Y//////z^X The English Pale (Time of Charles I) 


l 77 \^v 7 i Plantations of English and Scots 
(Time of Elizabeth and the first two Stuarts) 


IRISH 

heda 


SEA 


Vexfora 


Ireland 


33. The Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 
1649-1660 

The “Rump” also abolished the House of Lords and the 
office of king. It named a Council of State, most of whose 
members were chosen from the House of Commons, The Com- 
to carry on the government. England now monwealth 
became a national republic, or Commonwealth, the first in 


































i66 


Constitutional Monarchy in England 


the history of the world. 1 The new republic was clearly the 
creation of a minority. Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Roman 
Catholics were ready to restore the monarchy, but as long as 
the power lay with the army, the small sect of Independents 
could impose its will on the great majority of the English people. 

Cromwell had to deal with a serious uprising in Ireland, 
where Prince Charles, the oldest son of the dead sovereign, had 
Subjection been proclaimed king. Invading the country 
of Ireland -with his trained soldiers, Cromwell captured 
town after town, slaughtered many royalists, and shipped 
many more to the West Indies as slaves. This time Ireland 
was completely subdued. Cromwell confiscated the estates 
of those who had supported the royalist cause and planted 
colonies of English Protestants in Ulster, Leinster, and Mun¬ 
ster. The Roman Catholic gentry were compelled to remove 
beyond the Shannon River to unfruitful Connaught. Even 
there the public exercise of their religion was forbidden them. 
Cromwell’s harsh measures brought peace to Ireland, but only 
intensified the hatred felt by Irish Roman Catholics for Protes¬ 
tant England. 

While Cromwell was still in Ireland, Prince Charles came to 
Scotland and by promising to be a Presbyterian king secured 
Scotland the support of the whole nation. Cromwell, how- 
subdued ever, destroyed the Scotch armies in two pitched 
battles. Prince Charles escaped capture and after thrilling 
adventures as a fugitive took refuge in France. 

Meanwhile, the “Rump” had become more and more un¬ 
popular. The army, which had saved England from Stuart 
Dissolution despotism, did not relish the spectacle of a small 
of the group of men, many of them selfish and corrupt. 

presuming to govern the country. Cromwell 
found them “horribly arbitrary,” and at last resolved to have 
done with them. He entered the House of Commons with a 
band of musketeers and ordered the members home. “Come, 
come,” he cried, “I will put an end to your prating. You are 

1 The Swiss Confederation (1291) and the United Netherlands (1581) were 
federative republics. 



OLIVER CROMWELL 
After the painting by Sir Peter Lely in 1653. 
Pitti Gallery, Florence. 










The Commonwealth and the Protectorate 167 

no Parliament. I say you are no Parliament. I will put an 
end to your sitting.” Another Parliament, made up of “God¬ 
fearing men” chosen by Cromwell and his associates, proved 
equally incapable and after a few months resigned its authority 
into Cromwell’s hands. 



Great Seal of England under the Commonwealth (reduced) 

The reverse represents the House of Commons in session. 


Though now a virtual dictator, Cromwell did not want 
absolute power. He therefore accepted a so-called Instrument 
of Government drawn up by some of his officers, The 
and notable as the only written constitution which Protectorate 
England has ever had. It vested supreme power in a single 
person styled the Lord Protector, holding office for life. He 
was to be assisted, and to some extent controlled, by a council 
and a parliament. The Protectorate, which thus supplanted 























i68 


Constitutional Monarchy in England 


the Commonwealth, really formed a limited or constitutional 
monarchy in all but name. 

The Lord Protector governed England for five years. 
His successful conduct of foreign affairs gave to that country 
an importance in European politics which it 

Cromwell as , . . _ . 

Lord Pro- had not enjoyed since the time of Ehzabeth. 

*®ctor, 1653 - jj e died [ n 1658. Two years later the nation, 

weary of military rule, recalled Prince Charles, 
who mounted the throne as Charles II. 

It seemed, indeed, as if the Puritan Revolution had been a 
complete failure. But this was hardly true. The revolution 
The Puritan arrested the growth of absolutism and divine 

Revolution right in England. It created among Englishmen 

a lasting hostility to despotic rule, whether exercised by King, 
Parliament, Protector, or army. Furthermore, it sent forth 
into the world ideas of popular sovereignty, which, during 
the eighteenth century, helped to produce the American and 
French revolutions. 


Charles II, 
1660-1685 


34. The Restoration and the “ Glorious Revolution,” 
1660-1689 

Charles II pledged himself to maintain Magna Carta, the 
Petition of Right, and various statutes limiting the royal power. 
Reign of The P e °pl e of England wished to have a king, but 
they also wished their king to govern by the advice 
of Parliament. Charles, less obstinate and more 
astute than his father, recognized this fact, and, when a conflict 

threatened with his minis¬ 
ters or Parliament, always 
avoided it by timely con¬ 
cessions. Whatever hap¬ 
pened, he used to say, 
he was resolved “ never 
set out on his travels 
again.” Charles’s charm 
of manner, wit, and genial humor made him a popular 
monarch, in spite of his grave faults of character. He was a 



Silver Crown of Charles II 


The Restoration 


169 

king who “never said a foolish thing and never did a wise 
one.” 

The period of the Restoration was characterized by a reaction 
against the austere scheme of life which the Puritans had im¬ 
posed on society. Puritanism not only deprived R eaction 
the people of evil pleasures, such as bear-baiting, against 
cock-fighting, and tippling, but it also prohibited Puntaiusm 
the Sunday dances and games, the village festivals, and the 
popular drama. When Puritanism disappeared, the people 
went to the opposite extreme and cast off all restraint. Eng¬ 
land was never more merry and never less moral than under 
its “Merry Monarch.” 

The Restoration brought back the Church of England, 
together with the Stuarts. Parliament, more intolerant than 
the king, made the use of the Book of Common The Dis- 
Prayer compulsory and required ministers to senters 
express their consent to everything contained in it. Rather 
than do so, nearly two thousand clergymen resigned their 
positions. Among them were found Presbyterians, Inde¬ 
pendents (or Congregationalists), Baptists, and Quakers. 
The members of these sects, since they refused to accept the 
national church, were henceforth classed as Dissenters . 1 They 
might not hold meetings for worship, or teach in schools, or 
hold any public office. Thus Dissenters, as well as Roman 
Catholics, had to endure persecution. 

One of the most important events belonging to the reign of 
Charles II was the passage by Parliament of the Habeas Corpus 
Act. The writ of habeas corpus 2 is an order, Habeas 
issued by a judge, requiring a person held in Corpus Act, 
custody to be brought before the court. If upon 1679 
examination good reason is shown for keeping the prisoner, he 
is to be remanded for trial; otherwise he must either be freed 
or released on bail. This writ had been long used in England, 
and one of the clauses of Magna Carta expressly provided 

1 Or Nonconformists. This name is still applied to English Protestants not 
members of the Anglican Church. 

2 A Latin phrase meaning “You may have the body.” 


170 Constitutional Monarchy in England 


against arbitrary imprisonment. It had always been possible, 
however, for the king or his ministers to order the arrest of a 
person considered dangerous to the state, without making any 
formal charge against him. The Habeas Corpus Act estab¬ 
lished the principle that every man, not charged with or con¬ 
victed of a known crime, is entitled to his liberty. Most of 
the British possessions where the Common Law prevails have 
accepted the act, and it has been adopted by the federal and 
state legislatures of the United States. 

The reign of Charles II also saw the beginning of the modern 
party system in Parliament. Two opposing parties took shape, 
Whigs and very largely out of a religious controversy. The 
Tories king, from his long life in France, was partial to 

Roman Catholicism, though he did not formally embrace that 
faith until the moment of death. His brother James, the 
heir to the throne, became an avowed Roman Catholic, much 
to the disgust of many members of Parliament. A bill was now 
brought forward to exclude Prince James from the succession, 
because of his conversion. Its supporters received the nick¬ 
name of Whigs, while those who opposed it were called Tories. 
The former were successors of the old “Roundheads,” the 
latter, of the “Cavaliers.” 1 The bill did not pass the House 
of Lords, but the two parties in Parliament continued to divide 
on other questions. They survive to-day as the Liberals and 
the Conservatives, though the latter are still often referred to 
as Tories. 

James II lacked the attractive personality which had made 
his brother a popular ruler; moreover, he was an avowed 
Reign of Roman Catholic and a staunch believer in the 
James II, divine right of kings. James soon managed to 

1685-1688 ma k e enemies of most of his Protestant subjects 

by “suspending” the laws against Roman Catholics and by 
appointing them to positions of authority and influence. He 
also dismissed Parliament. Englishmen might have tolerated 
James to the end of his reign (he was then nearing sixty), 
in the hope that he would be succeeded by his Protestant 

1 See page 162 and note 1. 


The Restoration 


171 



daughter Mary. But the birth in 1688 of a son to his Roman 
Catholic second wife changed the whole situation by opening 
up the prospect of a Roman Catholic succession to the throne. 
At last a number of Whig and Tory leaders invited William 
Prince of Orange, stadholder or governor-general of Holland, 
to rescue England from Stuart despotism . 1 

William landed in England with a small army and marched 
unopposed to London. 

The wretched Accession 
king, deserted of William 
by his re- andMary 
tainers and soldiers, soon 
found himself alone. He 
fled to France, where he 
lived the remainder of his 
days as a pensioner at the 
French court. Parliament 
granted the throne con¬ 
jointly to William and 
Mary, William to rule 
during his lifetime and 
Mary to have the succes¬ 
sion if she survived him . 2 
Should they have no 
children, the throne was 
to go to Mary’s sister 
Anne. 

At the same time Parliament took care to perpetuate its own 
authority and the Protestant religion by enacting the Bill of 
Rights, which has a place by the side of Magna The Bill of 
Carta and the Petition of Right among the great Rlghts 
documents of English constitutional history. This act decreed 
that the sovereign must henceforth be a member of the Anglican 
Church. It forbade him to “ suspend ” the operation of the 
laws, or to levy money or maintain a standing army except by 


The Triumph of William III 

After an allegorical picture in the Sutherland Collection. 


1 William was Mary’s husband. See the genealogical table, page 174, note 1. 

2 Mary, however, died in 1694. 






172 Constitutional Monarchy in England 


consent of Parliament. It also declared that election of mem¬ 
bers of Parliament should be free; that they should enjoy 
freedom of speech and action within the two Houses; and that 
excessive bail should not be required, or excessive fines imposed, 
or cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Finally, it affirmed 
the right of subjects to petition the sovereign and ordered the 
holding of frequent Parliaments. These were not new prin¬ 
ciples of political liberty, but now the English people were 
strong enough to give them the binding form of laws. They 
reappear in the first ten amendments to the Constitution of 
the United States. 

Parliament also passed a Toleration Act, conceding to Dis¬ 
senters the right of public worship, though not the right of 
The Tolera- holding any civil or military office. The Dis- 
tion Act senters might now worship as they pleased, with¬ 

out fear of persecution. Unitarians and Roman Catholics, as 
well as Jews, were expressly excluded from the benefits of the 
act. The passage of this measure did much to remove religion 
from English politics as a vital issue. 

The Revolution of 1688-1689 struck a final blow at ab¬ 
solutism and divine right in England. An English king be- 
The “ Glori- came henceforth the servant of Parliament, 
ous Revolu- holding office only on good behavior. An act of 
Parliament had made him and an act of Parliament 
might depose him. It is well to remember, however, that the 
Revolution did not form a popular movement. It was a suc¬ 
cessful struggle for parliamentary supremacy on the part of the 
upper classes. The government of England still remained 
far removed from democracy. 


35. William III and Anne, 1689-1714 

The supremacy won by Parliament was safeguarded, a few 
years later ( 1701 ), by the passage of the Act of Settlement. 
Act of It provided that in case William III or his 

sister-in-law Anne died without heirs, the crown 
should pass to Sophia, electress of Hanover, 
and her descendants. She was the granddaughter of 


Settlement 
and the 
succession 


William III and Anne 


173 


James I and a Protestant. This arrangement deliberately 
excluded a number of nearer representatives of the Stuart house 
from the succession, because they were Roman Catholics. 
Parliament thus asserted in the strongest way the right of the 
English people to choose their own rulers. 

The Act of Settlement not only fixed the succession, but 
also imposed additional restrictions upon the power of an Eng¬ 
lish sovereign. For instance, no person having ^ ^ 
an office by appointment of the king or receiving Settlement 
a pension from him was henceforth allowed to 
sit in the House of Commons. In order to pre¬ 
vent any royal interference with the conduct of justice, judges 
were permitted to hold their places during good behavior and 
were made removable only by Parliament. 

Several other important steps in political liberty were taken 
during the reign of William III. Parliament passed an act 
limiting the king’s control over the army to only Further 
six months (later, to only a year), at a time, gains by 
Parliament also fell into the habit of making Parliament 
annual appropriations for government expenses, instead of 
for longer periods. The result was that the king had to call 
the legislature in session each year and to submit every item 
of expenditure to the scrutiny of the legislators. Finally, 
must be noted the refusal of Parliament to continue the censor¬ 
ship of books, pamphlets, and newspapers, by means of which 
the expression of public opinion had long been muzzled. Eng¬ 
land now began to enjoy a free press — an essential accompani¬ 
ment of a free government. 

Upon the death of William III in 1702, Queen Anne mounted 
the throne. Her short reign saw the union of England and 
Scotland. The two countries, which had had Act of Union, 
a common king since the accession of James I, 1707 
were henceforth to have a common Parliament with complete 
freedom of trade between them. The Scotch, however, re¬ 
tained their own laws and Presbyterian Church. After 1707 it 
is proper to speak of the kingdom of Great Britain, and of 
the English, Welsh, and Scotch as forming the British people. 


174 Constitutional Monarchy in England 

Queen Anne died in 1714, and in accordance with the Act 
of Settlement, George I, the son of Sophia of 
Hanoverian Hanover, ascended the throne. He was the 

l7i4 Sty ’ first member of the Hanoverian dynasty, which 

has since continued to reign in Great Britain. 1 

36. England during the Seventeenth Century 

The population of England at the close of the seventeenth 
century exceeded five millions, of whom at least two-thirds 
Social lived in the country. Except for London, there 

England were only four towns of more than ten thousand 

inhabitants. London counted half a million people within its 


1 Stuart and Hanoverian Dynasties. 
James I (1603-1625) 


Charles I 
(1625-1649) 


' i 

Charles II 
(1660-1685) 
Mary, m. William, 
Prince of Orange 


I 

Elizabeth, m. Frederick V, Elector of the 

Palatinate 


James II 
(1685-1688) 


Sophia, m. Ernest Augustus, Elector 
of Hanover 

George I 
( 1714 - 1727 ) 


William III, m. Mary 
Prince of (1689-1694) 
Orange, 

King of 

England (1689-1702) 


Anne George II 
(1702-1714) (1727-1760) 


Frederick, Prince of Wales 

(d. 1751) 

i 

George III 
(1760-1820) 


George IV William IV Edward, Duke of Kent 
(1820-1830) (1830-1837) | 

Victoria 

(1837-1901) 

I 

Edward VII 
(1901-1910) 


George V 
(1910- ) 







England during ths Seventeenth Century 175 

limits and had become the largest city in Europe. Town life 
still wore a medieval look, but the increase of wealth gradually 
introduced many new comforts and luxuries. Coal came into 
use instead of charcoal; tea, coffee, and chocolate competed 
with wine, ale, and 
beer as beverages; the 
first newspapers 
appeared, generally 
in weekly editions; 
amusements multi¬ 
plied; and passenger 
coaches began to ply 
between London and 
the provincial centers. 

The highways, how¬ 
ever, were wretched 
and infested with 
robbers. The traveler 
found some recom¬ 
pense for the hard¬ 
ships of a journey in 
the country inns, 
famous for their 
plenty and good cheer. The transport of goods was chiefly by 
means of pack horses, because of the poor roads and the absence 



Title-page of a tract published in 1636. 

of canals. Postal arrangements also remained very primitive, 
and in remote districts letters were not delivered more than 



A London Bellman 

Title-page of a tract published in 1616. It was part 
of the duties of a bellman, or night-watchman, to call out 
the hours, the state of the weather, and other information 
as he passed by. 






































































176 Constitutional Monarchy in England 


once a week. The difficulties of travel and communication 
naturally made for isolation; and country people, except the 
wealthy, rarely visited the metropolis. 

As the population of England increased, old industries de¬ 
veloped and new ones sprang up. The chief manufacture was 
Economic that of wool, while that of silk flourished after 

England the influx of Huguenots which followed the revo¬ 

cation of the Edict of Nantes. 1 The absence of large textile 
mills made it necessary to carry on spinning 
and weaving in the homes of the operatives. 
Coal mines and iron mines, which in later 
times became so important a source of England’s 
prosperity, were then little worked. Farming 
and the raising of sheep and cattle still re¬ 
mained the principal occupations. Agriculture, 
however, was retarded by the old system of 
common tillage and open fields, just as manu¬ 
facturing was fettered by the craft guilds. 
These survivals of the Middle Ages had not 
yet disappeared. 

The seventeenth century in England saw a 
notable advance in science. At this time 
Harvey revealed the circulation of the blood. 

of Sir Isaac science Boyle, an Irishman, has been called 

Newton j cience the “ father of modern chemistry,” 

in the possession of so many were his researches in that subject. 
If Lradon Society Napier, a Scotchman, invented logarithms, 
which lie at the basis of the higher mathematics. 
A still greater man was Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who 
discovered the infinitesimal calculus. 2 Knowledge of the 
calculus, which deals with quantities infinitely small, has been 
of immense service in engineering and other applied sciences. 
The profound mind of Newton also formulated the so-called 
law of gravitation. He showed by mathematical calculation 

1 See page 191. 

2 Credit for the discovery is shared by Newton with his German contemporary 
Leibniz (1646-1716). 




England during the Seventeenth Century 177 


that the motion of the planets about the sun, and of the moon 
about the earth, can be explained as due to the same mysterious 
force of gravity which makes the apple fall to the ground. 
This discovery that all the movements of the heavenly bodies 
obey one simple physical law forms perhaps the greatest achieve¬ 
ment in the history of science. Shortly after the “Glorious 
Revolution” a group of investigators obtained a charter form¬ 
ing them into the Royal Society of London. It still exists 
and enrolls the most distinguished scientists of Great Britain. 
The Royal Observatory at Greenwich also dates from this 
period. Altogether much was being done to uncover the 
secrets of nature. 

Seventeenth-century England produced no very eminent 
painters or sculptors, though foreign artists, such as Rubens 
and Van Dyck, were welcomed there. Among ^ 
architects the most famous was Sir Christopher 
Wren, who did much to popularize the Renaissance style of 
building. A great fire, which destroyed most of old London 
during the reign of Charles II, gave Wren an opportunity 
to rebuild about fifty parish 
churches, as well as St. Paul’s 
Cathedral. 

English literature in the seven¬ 
teenth century covered many 
fields. Shakespeare and Bacon, 
the two chief literary ornaments 
of Elizabeth’s reign, 

Literature 

did some of their 
best work during the reign of 
James I. In 1611 appeared the 
Authorized Version of the Bible, 
sometimes called the King James 
Version because it was dedicated 
to that monarch. The simplicity, dignity, and eloquence of this 
translation have never been surpassed, and it still remains in 
ordinary use among Protestants throughout the English-speak¬ 
ing world. The Puritan poet, John Milton, compbsed his epic 



John Milton 

A portrait of the poet at the age of 
twenty-one. 


178 Constitutional Monarchy in England 

of Paradise Lost during the reign of Charles II. About the same 
time another Puritan, John Bunyan, wrote the immortal 
Pilgrim’s Progress , a book which gives an equal though different 
pleasure to children and adults, to the ignorant and the learned. 
The representative man of letters of the Restoration period 
was John Dryden, poet laureate, playwright, and essayist. 
But these are only a few of the eminent poets and prose 
writers of the age. 


Studies 


1. Explain: the “Rump”; “Pride’s Purge”; the “Ironsides”; “Cavalier”; 
and “Roundhead.” 2. What circumstances gave rise to (a) the Petition of Right; 
( b ) the Instrument of Government; (c) the Habeas Corpus Act; (d) the Bill of 
Rights; and ( e ) the Act of Settlement? 3- Why were the reformers within the 
Church of England called Puritans? 4. Contrast the Commonwealth as a national 
republic with the medieval Italian cities, the Swiss Confederation, and the United 
Netherlands. 5. Under what circumstances does the Constitution of the United 
States provide for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus? 6. Why has the 
Bill of Rights been called the “third great charter of English liberty”? 7. Show 
that the Revolution of 1688-1689 was a “ preserving” and not a “destroying” revo¬ 
lution. 8. Trace the downfall of divine right as a political doctrine in seventeenth- 
century England. 9. What is the essential distinction between a “limited” or 
“constitutional” monarchy and ail “absolute” or “autocratic” monarchy? 
10. Using the genealogical table (page 174, note 1), show the claim of the Hanover¬ 
ians to the English throne. 



Specimen of Cromwell’s Handwriting 


CHAPTER VI 


ABSOLUTE MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 1610-1715 1 
37. Absolutism of Louis XIII and Louis XIV 

France in the seventeenth century furnished the best ex¬ 
ample of an absolute monarchy supported by pretensions 
to divine right. French absolutism owed most cardinal 
of all to Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Rlcheheu 
Louis XIII (1610-1643). Though of weak physique and in 
poor health, Richelieu possessed 
such strength of will and so 
thorough an understanding of 
politics that he was able to 
dominate the king and through 
the king to govern France for 
eighteen years. 

Richelieu’s foreign policy — 
to aggrandize France at the 
expense of the Hapsburgs — led 
to his successful intervention 
on the side of the Policies of 
Protestants at a Rlchelieu 
decisive moment in the Thirty 
Years’ War. His domestic 
policy — to exalt the French 
monarchy — met equal success. 

Though the nobles were still rich After th ® p ° rtrai j b ^, the Belgian artlst * 
and influential, Richelieu beat 

down their opposition by forbidding the practice of dueling, 
that last remnant of private warfare, by ordering many castles 
to be blown up with gunpowder, and by bringing rebellious 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History , chapter xxviii, “Louis 
XIV and His Court.” 



Cardinal Richelieu 

Louvre, Paris 


179 


180 Absolute Monarchy in France 

dukes and counts to the scaffold. The nobles henceforth 
were no longer feudal lords but only courtiers. 

Richelieu died in 1642, and the next year Louis XIII, the 
master whom he had served so faithfully, also passed away. 
Cardinal The new ruler, Louis XIV, was only a child, and 
Mazarin the management of affairs for a second period of 
eighteen years passed into the hands of Cardinal Mazarin. 

He was an Italian by 
birth, but he became a 
naturalized Frenchman 
and carried out Richelieu’s 
policies. Mazarin con¬ 
tinued the war against the 
Hapsburgs, upon which 
Richelieu had entered, and 
brought it to a satis¬ 
factory conclusion. The 
Peace of Westphalia was 
Mazarin’s greatest 
triumph. He also crushed 
a formidable uprising 
against the Crown, on the 
part of discontented 
nobles. Having achieved 
all this, the cardinal could 
truly say that “if his language was not French, his heart was.” 
His death in 1661 found the royal authority more firmly 
established than ever before. 

Louis XIV, who now in his twenty-third year took up the 
reins of government, ranks among the ablest of French mon- 
Louis XIV, archs. He was a man of handsome presence, 
the man slightly below the middle height, with a prominent 

nose and abundant hair, which he allowed to fall over his 
shoulders. In manner he was dignified, reserved, courteous, 
and as majestic, it is said, in his dressing-gown as in his robes 
of state. A contemporary wrote that he would have been 
every inch a king, “even if he had been born under the roof of 



Versailles 

The palace of Versailles now forms a magnificent picture gallery and museum of French history, while the park, with its fountains and 
ornamental shrubbery, is a place of holiday resort for Parisians. It is estimated that Louis 2i.1V spent one hundred million dollais on the 

buildings and grounds of Versailles. 


Absolutism of Louis XIV 181 
































































































































































































































































































182 


Absolute Monarchy in France 


a beggar.” Louis possessed much natural intelligence, a re¬ 
tentive memory, and great capacity for work. It must be 
added, however, that his general education had been neglected, 
and that throughout his life he remained ignorant and super¬ 
stitious. Vanity formed a striking trait in the character of 
Louis. He accepted the most fulsome compliments and de¬ 
lighted to be known as the “Grand Monarch” and the “Sun- 
king.” 

Louis gathered around him a magnificent court at Versailles, 
near Paris. Here a whole royal city, with palaces, parks, 
Court of groves, and fountains, sprang into being at his 

Louis xiv order. Many French nobles now spent little time 
at Versailles on ^eir country estates; they preferred to remain 
at Versailles in attendance on the king, to whose favor they 
owed offices, pensions, and honors. The king’s countenance, 
it was said, is the courtier’s supreme felicity; “he passes his 
life looking on it and within sight of it.” 

The famous saying, “I am the State,” 1 though not uttered 
by Louis, accurately expressed his conviction that in him were 
Louis xiv, embodied the power and greatness of France, 
the king Few monarchs have tried harder to justify their 
despotic rule. He was fond of gayety and sport, but he never 
permitted himself to be turned away from the punctual dis¬ 
charge of his royal duties. Until the close of his reign — one 
of the longest in the annals of Europe — Louis devoted from 
five to nine hours a day to what he called the “trade of a king.” 

Conditions in France made possible the absolutism of Louis. 
Richelieu and Mazarin had labored with great success to 
Absolutism strengthen the Crown at the expense of the nobles 
m France and the commons. The nation lacked a Parlia¬ 
ment to represent it and voice its demands, for the Estates- 
General had not been summoned since 1614. It did not meet 
again till 1789, just before the outbreak of the French Revolu¬ 
tion. In France there was no Magna Carta to protect the 
liberties of the people by limiting the right of a ruler to impose 
taxes at will. The French, furthermore, did not have inde- 
1 “ L’Etat,c’estmoi .” 



LOUIS XIV 

After the painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud. 
Louvre, Paris. 




























































•V 

-• 






1 








r 








t 




f 
























' l 


* 















The Wars of Louis XIV 


183 


pendent law courts which could interfere with the king’s power 
of exiling, imprisoning, or executing his subjects. Absolute 
monarchy thus became so firmly rooted in France that a revo¬ 
lution was necessary to overthrow it. 

Absolutism, as a principle of government, received its fullest 
justification in a famous work 1 written by Bossuet, a learned 
French bishop, for the instruction of Louis XIV’s Bossuet on 
son. A hereditary monarchy, declared Bossuet, absolutism 
is the most ancient and natural, the strongest and most efficient 
of all forms of government. Royal power emanates from 
God; hence the person of the king is sacred and it is sacrilege 
to conspire against him. No one may rightfully resist the 
king’s commands; his subjects owe him obedience in all mat¬ 
ters. To the violence of a king the people can only oppose 
respectful remonstrances and prayers for his conversion. A 
king, indeed, ought not to be a tyrant, but he can be one in 
perfect security. “As in God are united every perfection and 
virtue, so all the power of all the individuals in a community 
is united in the person of the king.” 

38. The Wars of Louis XIV 

How unwise it may be to concentrate authority in the 
hands of one man is shown by the melancholy record of the 
wars of Louis XIV. To make France powerful Ambitious 
and gain fame for himself, Louis plunged his designs 
country into a series of struggles from which it 0^ Louis 
emerged completely exhausted. He dreamed of 
dominating all western Europe, but his aggressions provoked 
against him a constantly increasing number of allies, who in 
the end proved to be too strong even for the king’s able generals 
and fine armies. 

Louis himself lacked military talent and did not take a 
prominent part in any campaign. He was served, however, 
by excellent commanders, including Conde and French 
Turenne. Vauban, an accomplished engineer, militarism 
especially developed siege-craft. It was said of Vauban that 
1 Politics as derived from the Very Words of the Holy Scriptures. 


184 


Absolute Monarchy in France 



Acquisitions of Louis XIV and Louis XV 


he never besieged a fortress without taking it and never lost 
one which he defended. Louvois, the war minister of the 
king, recruited, equipped, and provisioned larger bodies of 
troops than ever before had appeared on European battle¬ 
fields. It was Louvois who introduced the use of distinctive 
uniforms for soldiers and the custom of marching in step. 
He also established field hospitals and ambulances and placed 
camp life on a sanitary basis. The labors of these men gave 
Louis the best standing army of the age. 

Of the four great wars which filled a large part of Louis’s 
reign, all but the last were designed to extend the dominions of 










The Wars of Louis XIV 


185 


France on the east and northeast as far as the Rhine. That 
river in ancient times had separated Gaul and Germany, and 
Louis, as well as Richelieu and Mazarin before him, The Rhine 
regarded it as a “natural boundary” of France, boundary 
Some expansion in this direction had already been made by 
the Peace of Westphalia, when France gained much of Alsace 
and secured the recognition of her old claims to the bishoprics 
of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine. A treaty which 
Mazarin negotiated with Spain in 1659 also gave to France 
possessions in Artois and Flanders. Louis thus had a good 
basis for further advance toward the Rhine. 

The French king began his aggressions by an effort to annex 
the Belgian or Spanish Netherlands, which then belonged to 
Spain. A triple alliance of Holland, England, Three wars 
and Sweden forced him to relinquish all his con- for the 
quests, except some territory in Flanders (1668). 11111116 
Louis blamed the Dutch for his setback and determined to 
punish them. Moreover, the Dutch represented everything to 
which he was opposed, for Holland was a republic, the keen rival 
of France in trade, and Protestant in religion. By skillful 
diplomacy he persuaded England and Sweden to stand aloof, 
while his armies entered Holland and drew near to Amsterdam. 
At this critical moment William, Prince of Orange, 1 became 
the Dutch leader. He was a descendant of that William the 
Silent, who, a century before, had saved the Dutch out of the 
hands of Spain. By William’s orders the Dutch cut the dikes 
and interposed a watery barrier to further advance by the 
French. William then formed another Continental coalition, 
which carried on the war till Louis signified his desire for peace. 
The Dutch did not lose a foot of territory, but Spain was obliged 
to cede to France the important province of Franche Comte 
(1678). A few years later Louis sought additional territory 
in the Rhinelands, but again an alhance of Spain, Holland, 
England, and the Holy Roman Empire compelled him to sue 
for terms (1697). 2 

1 Subsequently William III of England. See page 171. 

2 In America this third war was known as “King William’s War.” 


i86 


Absolute Monarchy in France 


The treaty of peace concluding the third war for the Rhine 
confirmed the French king in the possession of Strasbourg, 
Alsace and together with other cities and districts of Alsace 
Lorraine which he had previously annexed. Alsace was 

now completely joined to France, except for some territories 
of small extent which were acquired about a century later. 
The Alsatians, though mainly of Teutonic extraction, in process 
of time considered themselves French and lost all desire for 
union with any of the German states. The greater part of 
Lorraine was not added to France until 1766, during the reign 
of Louis’s successor. The Lorrainers, likewise, became thor¬ 
oughly French in feeling. 

39. War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-1713 

The European balance of power had thus far been pre¬ 
served, but it was now threatened in another direction. The 
The Spanish king of Spain lay dying, and as he was without 
succession children or brothers to succeed him, all Europe 
wondered what would be the fate of his vast possessions in 
Europe and America. Louis had married one of his sisters, 
and the Holy Roman Emperor another, so both the Bourbons 
and the Austrian Hapsburgs could put forth claims to the Span¬ 
ish throne. When the king died, it was found that he had left 
his entire dominions to one of Louis’s grandsons, in the hope 
that the French might be strong enough to keep them undivided. 
Though Louis knew that acceptance .of the inheritance would 
involve a war with Austria and probably with England, whose 
ruler, William III, was Louis’s old foe, ambition triumphed 
over fear and the desire for glory over consideration for the 
welfare of France. Louis proudly presented his grandson to 
the court at Versailles, saying, “ Gentlemen, behold the king 
of Spain.” 

In the War of the Spanish Succession France and Spain 
faced the Grand Alliance, which included England, Holland, 
Course of Austria, several of the German states, and Portu- 
the war gal. Europe had never known a war that con¬ 
cerned so many countries and peoples. William III died 



o 


Ot o 


CO 

Cn o 































































































War of the Spanish Succession 


187 


shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, leaving the continuance 
of the contest as a legacy to his sister-in-law, Queen Anne. 1 
England supplied the coalition with funds, a fleet, and also with 
the ablest commander of the age, the duke of Marlborough. 
In Eugene, prince of Savoy, the Allies had another skillful and 
daring general. Their great 
victory at Blenheim in 1704 was 
the first of a series of successes 
which finally drove the French 
out of Germany and Italy and 
opened the road to Paris. But 
dissensions among the Allies and 
the heroic resistance of France 
and Spain enabled Louis to hold 
his enemies at bay, until the 
exhaustion of both sides led to 
the conclusion of the Peace of 
Utrecht. 

This peace ranks among the 
most important diplomatic 
arrangements of modern times. 

First, Louis’s grandson was 
recognized as king Peace o{ 
of Spain and her Utrecht, 
colonies, on condi- 1713 
tion that the Spanish and French 
crowns should never be united. Since this time Bourbon 
sovereigns have continued to rule in Spain. Next, the Aus¬ 
trian Hapsburgs gained the Spanish dominions in Italy, that is, 
Milan and Naples, the island of Sardinia, and the Belgian or 
Spanish Netherlands (thenceforth- for a century called the 
Austrian Netherlands). Finally, England obtained from France 
extensive possessions in North America and from Spain, Mi¬ 
norca and the rock of Gibraltar, commanding the narrow en¬ 
trance to the Mediterranean. 

Two of the smaller members of the Grand Alliance likewise 

1 In America the war was known as “Queen Anne’s War.” 



Marlborough 

A miniature in the possession of the 
duke of Buccleugh. 






I 



188 


Though not an island, Gibraltar is connected with the Spanish mainland only by a flat strip of sandy ground. The rock, which is about 2 \ miles in 
length, rises to a height of 140c feet. At the base and on the summit are powerful batteries, while the sides are pierced with loopholes and galleries for 
cannon. There is also an inclosed harbor in which a fleet can safely anchor. Gibraltar has remained in British hands since 1704. 






















































































































































































































































France during the Seventeenth Century 189 

profited by the Peace of Utrecht. The right of the elector of 
Brandenburg to hold the title of king of Prussia Branden _ 
was acknowledged. This formed an important burg-Prussia 
step in the fortunes of the Hohenzollern dynasty. and Savoy 
The duchy of Savoy also became a kingdom and received the 
island of Sicily (shortly afterwards exchanged for Sardinia). 
The house of Savoy in the nineteenth century provided Italy 
with its present reigning family. 

France lost far less by the war than at one time seemed 
probable. Louis gave up his dream of dominating Europe, 
but he kept all the Continental acquisitions made Position of 
earlier in his reign. Yet the price of the king’s France 
warlike policy had been a heavy one. France paid it in the 
shape of famine and pestilence, excessive taxes, huge debts, 
and the impoverishment of the people. Louis, now a very old 
man, survived the Peace of Utrecht only two years. As he 
lay dying, he turned to his little heir 1 and said, “Try to keep 
peace with your neighbors. I have been too fond of war; 
do not imitate me in that, nor in my too great expenditure.” 
These words showed an appreciation of the errors which robbed 
his long reign of much of its glory. 

40 . France during the Seventeenth Century 

No absolute ruler, however conscientious and painstaking, 
can shoulder the entire burden of government. Louis XIV 
necessarily had to rely very much on his ministers, Colbert 
of whom Colbert was the most eminent. Colbert 
gave France the best administration it had ever known. His 
reforming hand was especially felt in the finances. He made 
many improvements in the methods of tax-collection and turned 
the annual deficit in the revenues into a surplus. One of his 
innovations, now adopted by all European states, was the 
budget system. Expenditures had previously been made at 
random, whether the treasury was full or empty. Colbert 
drew up careful estimates, one year in advance,, of the probable 

1 His great-grandson, then a child of five years. The reign of Louis XV covered 
the period 1715-1774* 


i9° Absolute Monarchy in France 



receipts and expenses, so that outlay should never exceed 
income. 

Colbert realized that the chief object of a minister of finance 
should be the increase of the national wealth. Hence he tried 


Economic 


in every 


measures of way 
Colbert 


Jean-Baptiste Colbert 

After the.painting by Philippe de Champaigne. 


to 

foster 
manufactures and 
commerce. Among 
other measures, 
Colbert placed heavy 
duties on the importa¬ 
tion of foreign pro¬ 
ducts, as a means of 
protecting the “in¬ 
fant industries” of 
France. This was 
the beginning of the 
protective system, 
since followed by 
many European 
countries and from Europe introduced into America. Colbert 
regarded protectionism as only a temporary device, however, 
and spoke of tariffs as crutches by the help of which manu¬ 
facturers might learn to walk and then throw them away. 

Colbert shared the erroneous views of many economists of 
his age in supposing that the wealth of a country is measured 
Colbert and by the amount of gold an d silver which it possesses, 
colonial ex- He wished, therefore, to provide the French with 
pansion colonies, where they could obtain the products 

which they had previously been obliged to purchase from the 
Spaniards, Dutch, and English. At this time many islands in 
the West Indies were acquired, Canada was developed, and 
Louisiana, the vast territory drained by the Mississippi, was 
opened up to settlement. France thus became one of the lead¬ 
ing colonial powers of Europe. 

As long as Colbert lived, he kept on good terms with the 



France during the Seventeenth Century 191 

Huguenots, who formed such useful and industrious subjects. 

Louis, however, had no love for the Huguenots, whom he 

regarded as heretics, and whose Calvinistic prin- _ 

r Revocation 

ciples, he knew, endowed them with scant 0 f the Edict 
respect for absolute monarchy. Accordingly, the Jg 8 ^ antes ’ 
king revoked the Edict of Nantes, which Henry IV 
had issued in 1598. The Huguenots, after nearly a century 
of religious toleration, were now denied freedom of worship and 
were also deprived of their rights as citizens. They continued 


Medal of Louis XIV 

Commemorates the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The 
obverse bears a representation of “ Louis the Great, the Most 
Christian King,” the reverse contains a legend meaning “ Heresy 
Extinguished.” 

to be an outlawed and persecuted sect until shortly before 
the French Revolution. 

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes resulted in a con¬ 
siderable emigration of Huguenots from France. What was a 
loss to that country was a gain to England and Emigration 
Holland, where they introduced their arts and of the 
trades. Prussia, also, profited by the emigration Huguenots 
of the Huguenots. Many of them went to Berlin, and that 
capital owed the beginning of its importance to its Huguenot 
population. Louis by his bigotry thus strengthened the chief 
Protestant foes of France. 

Louis was a generous patron of art. One of his architects, 
Mansard, invented the mansard roof, which has been largely 
used in France and other European countries. Art under 
This architectural device makes it possible to Louls XIV 
provide extra rooms at a small expense, without adding an 





192 


Absolute Monarchy in France 


additional story to the building. Among the monuments of 
Louis’s reign are the Hotel des Invalides, now the tomb of 
Napoleon, additions to the Louvre, and the huge palace of 
Versailles. Louis also founded the Gobelins manufactory, 
so celebrated for fine carpets, furniture, and metal work. 

The long list of French 
authors who flourished during 
Louis XIV’s reign includes 
Corneille and Racine, the 
tragedians, Moliere, the comic 

Literature dramatist, La 
under Fontaine, whose 

Louis XIV fables are still 

popular, Perrault, now remem¬ 
bered for his fairy tales, and 
Madame de Sevigne, whose 
letters are regarded as models 
of French prose. Probably 
the most famous work com¬ 
posed at this time is the 
Memoirs of . Saint-Simon. It 
presents an intimate and not 
very flattering picture of the 
king and his court. 

Louis and his ministers 
believed that the government should encourage research and 
the diffusion of knowledge. Richelieu founded and Colbert 
Learning fostered the French Academy. Its forty members, 
sometimes called the “Immortals,” are chosen for 
their eminent contributions to language and litera¬ 
ture. The great dictionary of the French language, on which 
they have labored for more than two centuries, is still 
unfinished. The academy now forms a section of the Insti¬ 
tute of France. The patronage of Colbert also did much to 
enrich the National Library at Paris, which contains the 
largest collection of books in the world. 

The brilliant reign of Louis XIV cast its spell upon the rest 



Moliere 

A bust by J. A. Houdon in the 
Theatre Franfaise, Paris. 


under 
Louis XIV 








France during the Seventeenth Century 193 

of Europe. Other sovereigns looked to him as the model of 
what a king should be, and set themselves to imitate the 
splendor of his court. During this period the The age of 
French language, manners, dress, art, literature, Louis XIV 
and science became the accepted standards of good society in 
all civilized lands. France still retains in large measure the 
preeminent position which she secured under the “Grand 
Monarch.” 


Studies 

1. Give dates for (a) accession of Louis XIV, (b) revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, and (c) Peace of Utrecht. 2. By reference to the map on page 184, show 
how far the “natural boundaries ” of France were attained during the reign of Louis 
XIV. 3. How did the condition of Germany after the Thirty Years’ War facilitate 
the efforts of Louis XIV to extend the French frontiers to the Rhine? 4. What is 
the origin of the name Franche Comte? 5. Read Southey’s poem After Blenheim. 
Does it rightly appreciate the significance of this battle in European history. 6. Show 
that by the Peace of Utrecht nearly all the combatants profited at the expense of 
Spain. 7. Compare the map of Europe in 1648 with that of Europe in 1713. Which 
states show the most marked changes in boundaries? 8. Why was the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes economically injurious to France? 9. “The age of Louis 
XIV in France is worthy to stand by the side of the age of Pericles in Greece and of 
Augustus in Italy.” Does this statement appear to be justified? 10. “Louis XIV 
was by far the ablest man who was born in modem times on the steps of a throne.” 
Comment on this statement. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE EUROPEAN BALANCE OF POWER, 1715-1789 
41 . Statecraft and Diplomacy 

The death of Louis XIV, shortly after the Peace of Utrecht, 
brought one historical epoch to a close and began another. 

Seventy-four years were to intervene before the 
meeting of the Estates-General ushered in the 
French Revolution, which has so profoundly 
affected all modern Europe to the present day. 
These seventy-four years from 1715 to 1789 really constitute 
the eighteenth century, a period preparatory to the revolution¬ 
ary period by which it was succeeded. 

Absolutism continued to be the system of government 
throughout the eighteenth century. Absolute monarchies 
Absolute prevailed everywhere on the Continent, except 
monarchies j n suc ] ;1 sma p states as Holland, Switzerland, and 
Venice, where aristocracies held the reins of power. Democ¬ 
racy was non-existent. The middle and lower classes had no 
real part in law-making, no representative assemblies, and no 
constitutional safeguards against arbitrary rule. The kings 
were everything; their subjects nothing. 

The interests of the ruling families — Bourbons, Haps- 
burgs, Hohenzollerns and the rest — received far more con- 
Dynastic sideration in eighteenth-century politics than 
interests those of peoples. Monarchs paid scant heed to 
geographical, racial, or linguistic boundaries, but cut and 
pared countries “as if they were Dutch cheeses.” Thus, 
at the Peace of Utrecht, large portions of Italy, together with 
the Spanish Netherlands, were taken from Spain and given 
to Austria. The idea, now so prevalent, that each people 
should determine its own destiny then found little favor. 

194 


The eight¬ 
eenth 
century in 
politics 


Rise of Russia 


I 95 


A cardinal principle of diplomacy in the eighteenth century 
was that of the balance of power. After the Peace of West¬ 
phalia statesmen generally agreed that the various The balance 
European states, so unlike in size, population, of P° wer 
and resources, ought to form a sort of federal community in 
which the security of all was ensured. If any state became so 
strong as to overshadow the others, then they must combine 
against it and endeavor to hold it in check. Louis XIV, who 
ignored this principle, had repeatedly to face the coalitions of 
his enemies. 

But the balance of power remained only an ideal, in an age 
when diplomacy was corrupt and international immorality 
was universal. Strong countries often robbed National 
their weaker neighbors with impunity. The aggrandize- 
result was that the vanity, selfishness, or ambition ment 
of individual rulers and dynasties plunged Europe into one 
war after another. From now on national aggrandizement 
replaced religious dissensions as the main cause of European 
strife. 

The special interest of this age in political history lies in the 
emergence of new states above the horizon of Continental 
politics. Spain, Holland, and Sweden, three New 
great nations of the seventeenth century, retired European 
to the background; Germany and Italy remained states 
disunited; Turkey declined in importance; and Poland dis¬ 
appeared from the map. Their place was taken by Russia 
and Prussia. These two countries, together with Great Britain, 
France, and Austria, formed henceforth the leading powers. 

42. Rise of Russia 

The influence of geographical conditions is clearly seen in 
Russian history. European Russia forms an immense, un¬ 
broken plain, threaded by numerous rivers which Geograph y 

facilitate movement into every part of the country, in Russian 

# . history 

While the rest of Europe, with its mountain ranges 

and deep inlets of the sea, tended to divide into many separate 

states, Russia just as naturally became a single state. 


196 


The European Balance of Power 



In historic times Goths, Huns, Avars, Finns, Bulgarians, 
Northmen, and Mongols occupied Russian territory, but the 
The Russian bulk of the population at the end of the medieval 
people period belonged to the Slavic branch of the Indo- 

European family. The Russians, therefore, were closely 
related in both language and blood to the Bohemians and 
Poles of central Europe and to the Serbians of the Balkan 
peninsula. 

Yet the Russians at the opening of modern times seemed to 
be rather an Asiatic than a European people. Three hundred 























Rise of Russia 


197 


years of Mongol rule had isolated them from their Slavic 
neighbors and had interrupted the stream of civilizing in¬ 
fluences which in earlier days flowed into Russia Backward- 
from Scandinavia and from the Byzantine Empire, ness of the 
The lack of seaports discouraged foreign commerce, Russians 
through which European ideas and customs might have entered 
Russia, while at the same time the nature of the country made 
agriculture rather than industry the principal occupation. 
Most of the Russians were ignorant, superstitious peasants, who 
led secluded lives in small farming villages scattered over the 
plains and throughout the forests. Even the inhabitants of 
the towns lacked the education and enlightened manners of the 
western peoples, whose ways they disliked and whose religion, 
whether Protestantism or Catholicism, they condemned as 
heretical. Russia, in short, needed to be restored to Europe, 
and Europe needed to be introduced to Russia. 

Russia under Ivan the Great (1462-1505), the tsar who 
expelled the Mongols, was still an inland state. The natural 
increase of her people, their migratory habits, Russian 
and the desire for civilizing intercourse with other expansion 
nations, impelled her expansion seawards. By m Europe 
the annexation of Novgorod and its possessions, Ivan carried 
Russian territory to the Arctic. Wars of his successors with 
the Tatars gave Russia command of the Volga from source to 
mouth and brought her to the Caspian. Russian emigrants 
also occupied the border country called the Ukraine, 1 which 
lay on both sides of the lower Dnieper. Russia continued, 
however, to be shut out from the Baltic by the Swedes and 
Poles and from the Black Sea by the Turks. 

The vanguard of the Ukrainian colonists was led by the 
mounted warriors known as Cossacks. 2 Like the frontiersmen 
of the American West, the Cossacks lived a wild The 
and independent life, now as herdsmen and far- Cossacks 
mers, now as hunters and fighters. They became in time 
subjects of the tsar, but still preserve a warlike organization, 

1 Russian krai, “frontier.” 

2 From the Turkish word, kazak, an adventurer or freebooter. 


198 


The European Balance of Power 


the tenure of land by military service (a form of feudalism), 
and the privilege of electing their own hetman, or supreme 
leader. 

Cossacks, Russian peasants, and adventurers also spread 
over the gentle slopes of the Urals and between these moun- 
Russian tains and the Caspian into Siberia. Before the 
expansion end of the sixteenth century they captured Sibir, 
m Asia a Mongol capital from which the whole region 

takes its name. By the middle of the seventeenth century they 
had penetrated to the Sea of Okhotsk; by 1700 they had 
occupied Kamchatka and faced the Pacific. The foundations 
of Russian supremacy were thus laid throughout northern 
Asia, a vast wilderness previously inhabited only by half¬ 
savage, heathen tribes. 

Over these dominions in Europe and Asia reigned the mon¬ 
arch who called himself the tsar and autocrat of all Russia. 
Accession The family of tsars, descended from the North¬ 
man Ruric in the ninth century, became extinct 
seven hundred years later, and disputes over the 
succession led to civil wars and foreign invasions. 
The Russians then proceeded to select a new tsar, and for this 
purpose a general assembly of nobles and delegates from the 
towns met at Moscow. Their choice fell upon one of their 
own number, Michael Romanov by name, whose family was 
related to the old royal line. He proved to be an excellent 
ruler in troublous times. His grandson was the celebrated 
Peter the Great. 


of the 

Romanov 

dynasty, 

1613 


43. Russia under Peter the Great, 1689-1725 

Peter became sole ruler of Russia when only seventeen years 
of age. His character almost defies analysis. An English 
Tsar Peter contemporary, who knew him well, described him 
as “a man of a very hot temper, soon inflamed, 
and very brutal in his passion.” Deeds of fiendish cruelty were 
congenial to him. After a mutiny of his bodyguard he edified 
the court by himself slicing off the heads of the culprits. In 
order to quell opposition in his family, he had his wife whipped 


Russia under Peter the Great 


199 


by the knout and ordered his own son to be tortured and ex¬ 
ecuted. He was coarse, gluttonous, and utterly without 
personal dignity. The companions of his youth were profli¬ 
gates; his banquets were orgies of dissipation. Yet Peter 
could be often frank and good-humored, and to his friends he 
was as loyal as he was treacherous to his foes. Whatever his 
weaknesses, few men have done more than Peter to change 
the course of history, and few have better deserved the appel¬ 
lation of “the Great.” 1 

Peter grew up wild and undisciplined, and he had to educate 
himself. The practical bent of his mind disclosed itself in the 
interest he took in mechanics, ship-building, Peter’s 
siege-craft, and military drill. Association with education 
foreigners at Moscow gave him some knowledge of European 
arts and sciences and first suggested to him the need of intro¬ 
ducing western culture into Russia. 

Soon after becoming Csar Peter sent fifty young Russians of 
the best families to England, Holland, and Venice to absorb 
all they could of European ideas. Afterwards he Peter in 
came himself, traveling incognito as “Peter western 
Mikhailov.” He spent two years abroad, partic- Europe 
ularly in Holland and England, where he studied ship-building 
and navigation. He also collected miners, mechanics, engineers, 
architects, and experts of every sort for the roads and bridges, 
the ships and palaces, the schools and hospitals which were to 
• arise in Russia. 

Many of Peter’s reforms were intended to introduce the 
customs of western Europe into Russia. The long Asiatic robes 
of Russian nobles had to give way to short Ger- Europeaniza _ 
man jackets and hose. Long beards, which the tion of 
people considered sacred, had to be shaved, or Russia 
else a tax paid for the privilege of wearing one. Women, 
previously kept in seclusion, were permitted to appear in public 
without veils and to mingle at dances and entertainments 
with men. A Russian order of chivalry — that of St. Andrew 
— was founded. The Bible was translated into the vernacular 

1 Read Longfellow’s poem, The White Czar. 


200 


The European Balance of Power 


and sold at popular prices. Peter adopted the “Julian calen¬ 
dar,” in place of the old Russian calendar, which began the 
year on the first of September, supposed to be the date of the 
creation. He also improved the Russian alphabet by omitting 
some of its cumbersome letters and by simplifying others. 
Such innovations were accepted only by the upper classes. 
The peasants clung tenaciously to their old ways and remained 
little affected by the sudden inrush of European ideas and 
manners. 

Peter found in Russia no regular army; he organized one 
after the German fashion. The soldiers (except the Cossacks) 
Recon- were uniformed and armed like European troops, 

struction of He found no fleet; he built one, modeled upon 
that of Holland. He opened mines, cut canals, 
laid out roads, introduced sheep breeding, and fostered by 
protective* tariffs the growth of silk and woolen manufactures. 
He instituted a police system and a postal service. He estab¬ 
lished schools of medicine, engineering, and navigation, as well 
as those of lower grade. He also framed a code of laws based 
upon the legal systems of western Europe. 

The Tsar’s reforming measures encountered much opposition 
on the part of the clergy. He therefore made the Russian 
Peter an Church entirely a state institution by vesting 

autocrat ecclesiastical authority in the Holy Synod, whose 

members were chosen by himself. Like the clergy, the old 
nobility had opposed Peter’s innovations. He consequently 
transformed it into an aristocracy of office-holders, whose 
rank depended, not upon their birth or wealth, but upon their 
service to the tsar. Any family which for two generations had 
not taken part in the government ceased to be noble. In 
place of an ancient assembly (Duma) of nobles, Peter instituted 
a Council of State, directly responsible to himself. Peter in 
these ways established an absolutism as unlimited as that of 
his contemporary, Louis XIV. 

1 Very different views have been expressed as to the value of 
Peter’s work. It is said, on the one side, that Russia could 
only be made over by such measures as he used; that the 



PETER THE GREAT 












FREDERICK THE GREAT 

After the painting by Antoine Pesne, 
Berlin Museum. 









Russia under Peter the Great 


201 


Russian people had to be dragged from their old paths and 
pushed on the broad road of progress. On the other side, it 
is argued that Peter’s reforms were too sudden, too Value of 
radical, and too little suited to the Slavic national Peter’s 
character. The upper classes acquired only a work 
veneer of western civilization, and with it many vices. The 
nobles continued to be indolent, corrupt, and indifferent to the 
public welfare. The clergy became merely the tools of the tsar. 
The common people remained as ignorant and oppressed as 
ever and without any opportunity of self-government. What¬ 
ever may be the truth as to these two views, no one disputes 
the fact that in a single reign, by the action of one man, Russia 
began to pass from semi-barbarism to civilization. 

As the ancient capital, Moscow, formed a stronghold of con¬ 
servatism, Peter determined to build a new capital, less Asiatic 
in character and more susceptible to European st. Peters- 
influence. The site chosen was an unhealthy burg » 1703 
swamp on the river Neva, not far from the Gulf of Finland. 
The laborers perished by thousands, but Peter cared little for 
human life and with resistless energy urged forward the work 
of draining the marshes and digging canals to carry away the 
stagnant waters. Russian traders were forced to settle in the 
city, and all the great landowners were required to build mansions 
there. To this northern Venice Peter gave the German name 
of (St.) Petersburg. 1 

The remaking of Russia according to European models 

‘formed only a half of Peter’s program. His foreign policy was 

equally ambitious. He realized that Russia needed 
1 J Peter’s 

readier access to the sea than could be found foreign po u cy 

through the Arctic port of Archangel. Peter 

made little headway against the Turks, who controlled the 

Black Sea, but twenty years of intermittent warfare with the 

Swedes enabled him to carry the western frontier of Russia to 

the Baltic. Russian history at this point connects closely with 

the history of Sweden. 

1 In 1914 the name was changed to the Slavic equivalent, Petrograd. 


202 


The European Balance of Power 


44. Sweden 


of the 
Baltic 


The Baltic resembles the Mediterranean in its narrow en¬ 
trance, numerous islands, and deeply indented shores. But 

the lands adjoining the northern sea are less fertile 
Histone . 

importance than those which surround the Mediterranean; 

it is of much smaller size; and many of its harbors 
are icebound during half the year. For these 
reasons the historic importance of the Baltic cannot compare 
with that of the Mediterranean, except in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries when Sweden became a great power. 

The inhabitants of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, though 
one in blood and almost one in speech, have never coalesced 
The three into a single nation. The Union of Calmar, which 

Scandinavian they formed in 1397, gave them a common ruler, 
states • 

but permitted each state to keep its own con¬ 
stitution and laws. Even this feeble confederation broke down 
during the storms of the Reformation. It was finally dis¬ 
solved in 1524, and Sweden 
again became independent. 

The kings of Sweden were 
both patriotic and able, and 
under them the country, 
though thinly populated and 
poor in natural resources, 
Expansion of rose to a leading 
Sweden place among Eu¬ 

ropean states. Finland had 
been a Swedish dependency 
since the twelfth century. 
Esthonia, on the southern 
shore of the Gulf of Finland, 
was conquered in the sixteenth 
century. Three other prov¬ 
inces, namely, Karelia, Ingria, and Livonia, were acquired by the 
Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus. As the result of his participa¬ 
tion in the Thirty Years’ War, Sweden also secured, at the Peace of 



Cradle or Charles XII 


Sweden 


203 


Westphalia, western Pomerania and other possessions in the 
north of Germany. She thus controlled nearly all the Baltic. 

The greatness of Sweden culminated and then declined during 
the spectacular reign of Charles XII. His youth was prophetic 
of his career. Indoors he read the exploits of Reign of 
Alexander the Great and the sagas of the Vikings; Charles XII, 
out of doors he devoted himself to hunting and 1697-1718 



warlike exercises. He came to the throne a lad of only fifteen, 
but already daring, ambitious, and eager for military glory. 
Events soon thrust into his hand the sword he was never to 
relinquish. 

Sweden could not be mistress of the Baltic without provoking 
the jealousy of various neighboring states, in particular, Russia, 












204 


The European Balance of Power 


Battle of 

Poltava, 

1709 


Poland, and Denmark. Shortly after the accession of 
Charles XII they formed a coalition to seize and dismember 
Exploits of the Swedish possessions. The boy-king, far from 
Charles XII being dismayed by the odds against him, turned 
fiercely upon his enemies before they could unite. He invaded 
Denmark, appeared before the walls of Copenhagen, and com¬ 
pelled the terrified Danes to conclude a separate peace. He 
won almost fabulous victories in Russia and Poland, at one time 
overthrowing a Russian .army five times as large as his own. 
The Poles, also badly beaten, were required to depose their 
ruler and accept the nominee of the Swedish king. 

But Charles was like a meteor which flashed across the 
European sky to disappear as quickly as it came. Rejecting 
all overtures for peace, he determined to march 
on Moscow and dictate terms to Peter the Great. 
The Russian resistance stiffened as the Swedes 
approached the capital along much the same route which the 
French under Napoleon followed one hundred years later. 
Charles had to turn south to the Ukraine, where he hoped to 
raise the Cossacks against the tsar. Here, however, he was 
defeated by Peter in the decisive battle of Poltava. Charles 
afterwards returned to his kingdom, but soon perished in an 
obscure conflict in Norway. 

Exhausted Sweden had now no choice but to make terms 
with her foes. She lost nearly all her foreign possessions except 
Partition of Finland . 1 The greater part of western Pomerania 
Swedish went to Prussia, which thus secured valuable 
terntorxes territory at the mouth of the Oder. Russia profited 
even more, for she took the four Swedish provinces on the 
eastern shores of the Baltic. Much of this region had been 
colonized in the Middle Ages by the knights of the Teutonic 
Order. It was now to become a Slavic land. Here Peter the 
Great founded his new capital, thus realizing a long-cherished 
dream of opening a “window” through which the Russian 
people might look into Europe. 

1 A small part of Finland, lying along the gulf of that name, was ceded to Russia. 
The rest of the country did not enter the Russian Empire until 1809. 


Russia under Catherine II 


205 


45. Russia under Catherine II, 1762-1796; 
the Decline of Turkey 

Shortly after the death of Peter the Great, at the early age of 
fifty-three, the male line of the Romanov dynasty became 
extinct. The succession now passed to women, Tsarina 
who intermarried with German princes and thus Catherine 
increased the German influence in Russia. It was a German 
princess, Catherine II, who completed Peter’s work of re¬ 
making Russia into a 
European state. She, 
also, has been called 
“ the Great,” a title pos¬ 
sibly merited by her 
achievements, though 
not by her character. 

Catherine came to Rus¬ 
sia as the wife of the 
heir-apparent. Once in 
her adopted country, 
she proceeded to make 
herself in all ways a 
Russian, learning the 
language and even 
conforming, at least 
outwardly, to the Or¬ 
thodox (or Russian) 

Church. Her husband 
was a weakling, and Catherine managed to get rid of him after 
he had reigned only six months. She then mounted the throne 
and for thirty-four years ruled Russia with a firm hand. 

The overthrow of Sweden left Poland and Turkey as the 
two countries which still blocked the path of Russia toward 
the sea. Catherine warred against them through- Catherine’s 
out her reign. She took the lion’s share of Poland, foreign 
when that unfortunate kingdom, as we shall policy 
shortly learn, was divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia. 
Catherine also secured from the Turks an outlet for Russia on 







206 


The European Balance of Power 


Ottoman 

power 


the Black Sea, though she never realized her dream of expelling 
them from European soil. 

When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, their Eu¬ 
ropean dominions already included a considerable part of the 

Balkan peninsula. The two centuries following 
Growth . . . . Pit 

of the witnessed the steady progress of the Ottoman 

arms. What are now Bulgaria, Rumania, Serbia, 

Bosnia, Albania, and Greece were incorporated 

within the Turkish Empire. Only tiny Montenegro, protected 

by mountain ramparts and a heroic soldiery, preserved its 

independence. Pressing northward, the Turks conquered part 

of Hungary and made the rest of that country a dependency. 

They overran the Crimea and bestowed it upon a Mongol 

khan as a tributary province. They annexed Egypt, Syria, 

Armenia, Mesopotamia, and the coast of northern Africa. 

The Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean became Turkish 

lakes. 

Two dramatic events showed that the Christian soldiery 
of Europe could still oppose a successful resistance to the 
The Cross Moslem warriors. The first was the crippling 

and the of Turkish sea-power by the combined fleets of 

Venice, Genoa, and Spain at Lepanto (1571). 
The second was the defeat suffered by the Turks under the 
walls of Vienna (1683). They marched on the Austrian capital, 
two hundred thousand strong, laid siege to it, and would have 
taken it but for the timely appearance of a relieving army 
commanded by the Polish king, John Sobieski. Poland at 
that time saved Austria from destruction and definitely stopped 
the land advance of the Turks in Europe. 

After 1683 the boundaries of European Turkey gradually 
receded. The Hapsburgs won back most of Hungary by the 
Decline of c l° se of the seventeenth century and during the 
the Ottoman eighteenth century further enlarged their pos¬ 
sessions at the expense of the Sultan. Catherine 
II, as the result of two wars with the Turks, secured the Crimea 
and the northern coast of the Black Sea. Russian merchant 
ships also received the right of free navigation in the Black 

































































































Austria and Maria Theresa 


207 


Sea and of access through the Bosporus and Dardanelles to 
the Mediterranean. In this way Catherine opened for Russia 
another “window” on Europe. 

Turkey lost more than territory. Russian consuls were 
admitted to Turkish towns, and Russian residents in Turkey 
were granted the free exercise of their religion. The 
As time went on, the tsars even claimed the right Eastern 
of protecting Christian subjects of the Sultan Q uestlon 
and consequently of interfering at will in Turkish affairs. 
The Sultan thus tended to become the “sick man” of Europe, 
the disposition of whose possessions would henceforth form 
one of the thorny problems of European diplomacy. In a word, 
what is called the Eastern Question began. 

46 . Austria and Maria Theresa 

The Hapsburgs were originally feudal lords of a small district 
in what is now northern Switzerland, where the ruins of their 
ancestral castle 1 may still be seen. Count Ru- The 
dolf, the real maker of the Hapsburg fortunes, Hapsburg 
secured the archduchy of Austria, with its capital family 
of Vienna, and in 1273 was chosen Holy Roman Emperor. 
The imperial title afterwards became hereditary in the Haps¬ 
burg family. 

The name “Austria” is loosely applied to all the territories 
which the Hapsburgs acquired by marriage, inheritance, or 
conquest. The accompanying map shows their The 
possessions early in the sixteenth century and Hapsburg 
their gains and losses from this time until the 
close of the eighteenth century. 

The Hapsburgs ruled over the most extraordinary jumble 
of peoples to be found in Europe. There were Germans in 
Austria proper and Silesia, Czechs in Bohemia Government 
and Moravia, Magyars, Croatians, and Slovenes 0 f the 
in Hungary and its dependencies, Italians in ^^ burg 
Milan and Tuscany, and Flemings and Walloons 
in the Netherlands. It was impossible to group such widely 

1 German Habichtsburg (“Hawk’s Burgh”). 


208 


The European Balance of Power 

scattered peoples into one centralized state; it was equally 
impossible to form them into a federation. Their sole bond 
of union was a common allegiance to the Hapsburg monarch. 



The Hapsburg realm threatened to break up in the eighteenth 
century upon the death of the emperor Charles VI, who lacked 
The male heirs. Charles, however, had made a so- 

Pragmatic called Pragmatic Sanction, or solemn compact, 
declaring his dominions to be indivisible and, 
leaving them to his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa. Most 
of the European powers pledged themselves by treaty to ob¬ 
serve this arrangement. 

The emperor died in 1740 and Maria Theresa became arch¬ 
duchess of Austria, queen of Hungary, queen of Bohemia, 
Maria and sovereign of all the other Hapsburg lands. 

Theresa She was then only twenty-three years old, strik¬ 
ingly handsome, and gifted with much charm of manner. Her 
youth, her beauty, and her sex might have entitled her to con¬ 
sideration by those states which had agreed to respect the 





Rise of Prussia 


209 

Pragmatic Sanction. But a paper bulwark could not safe¬ 
guard Austria against Prussia 
and Prussia’s allies. 

47 . The Rise of Prussia 

Prussia, the creator of 
modern Germany, was the 
creation of the The Hohen- 
Hohenzollerns. 1 zo llern s 
Excepting Frederick the Great, 
no Hohenzollern deserves to 
be ranked as a genius; but it 
would be hard to name an¬ 
other dynasty with so many / 
able, ambitious, and un¬ 
scrupulous rulers. The Hohen- 
zollerns prided themselves on Maria Theresa 

the fact that almost every After a pastel painting formerly in the 
member of the family en-P° ssess ^ on °* Archduke Frederick, Vienna. 

larged the possessions received from his ancestors. They did 
this by purchase, by inheritance, by shrewd diplomacy, and, 
most of all, by hard fighting. 

The veil of obscurity hanging over the early history of the 
Hohenzollerns lifts early in the fifteenth century, when one of 
them received the mark of Brandenburg from the Margraviate 
Holy Roman Emperor, as compensation for various of Branden- 
sums of money advanced to him. Brandenburg burg> 1415 
in the Middle Ages had formed a German colony planted 
among the Slavs beyond the Elbe. With the margraviate 
went the electoral dignity, that is to say, the ruler of Branden¬ 
burg was one of the seven German princes who enjoyed the 
privilege of choosing the emperor. 

The Hohenzollerns as yet had no connection with Prussia. 
That country received its name from the Borussi, a heathen 
people most closely related to the Lithuanians. The Borussi 

1 The name is derived from that of their castle on the heights of Zollern in southern 
Germany. Emperor William II was the twenty-fourth ruler of the line. 



210 


The European Balance of Power 


occupied the Baltic coast east of the Vistula. They were 
Duchy of conquered in the thirteenth century by the knights 

Prussia, of the Teutonic Order, who exterminated many 

1618 

of them and kept the rest in subjection by force 
and terrorism. The Prussian landed aristocracy ( Junkers ) 
has largely descended from these hard-riding, hard-fighting, 
fierce, cruel knights. They made Prussia a thoroughly 
German land in speech, customs, and religion. The decline 
of their order in the fifteenth century enabled the king of 
Poland to annex West Prussia. During the Reformation the 
Teutonic grand master, who was a near relative of the Hohen- 
zollerns of Brandenburg, dissolved the order and changed East 
Prussia into a secular duchy. His family became extinct 
early in the seventeenth century, and the duchy then passed 
to the elector of Brandenburg. 

The period between the close of the Thirty Years’ War 
and the accession of Frederick the Great saw many additions 
Kingdom of to Hohenzollern domains. The most impor- 
Prussia, tant were eastern Pomerania, the acquisition of 

which extended Brandenburg to the Baltic (1648); 
certain districts along the lower Rhine (1666); and most of 
western Pomerania, which was secured after the defeat of 
Sweden (1720). The Hohenzollerns were now powerful enough 
to aspire to royal dignity. At the outbreak of the War of the 
Spanish Succession, the emperor, who was anxious to receive 
the elector’s support, allowed him to assume the title of “king” 
and to claim, henceforth, that he ruled by divine right. Prus¬ 
sia, rather than Brandenburg, gave its name to the new king¬ 
dom, because the former was an independent state, while the 
latter was a member of the Holy Roman Empire. 

Only a strong hand could hold together the scattered pos¬ 
sessions of the Hohenzollerns. Their hand was strong. No 
Prussian monarchs of the age exercised a more unlimited 

absolutism authority or required more complete obedience 
from their subjects. Nicht raisonniren — “no reasoning here” 
— was their motto. According to the Hohenzollern principle, 
the government could not be too absolute, provided it was 


Rise of Prussia 


211 


efficient. The ruler, working through his ministers, who were 
merely his clerks, must foster agriculture, industry, and com¬ 
merce, promote education, and act as the guide of his people 
in religion and morals. 

This type of Prussian ruler was well exemplified in the person 
of Frederick William, commonly called the Great Elector. 
Unattractive in character, cunning and deceitful, The Great 
he showed, nevertheless, a single-hearted de- Elector, 

u 1 CQQ 

votion to the interests of the state and spared 
neither himself nor others in its sendee. His long reign of 
forty-eight years marked out the paths which Prussia hence¬ 
forth followed. He suppressed such representative assemblies 
as existed in his dominions, replacing them by a central council 
of his ministers and provincial governors. A Hohenzollem 
could not tolerate free institutions; the will of the ruler must 
be supreme. In religious matters the Great Elector adopted 
a wise policy of toleration. Though Brandenburg was staunchly 
Protestant, he opened it to Jews from Austria and Huguenots 
from France and thus added many useful citizens to the popu¬ 
lation. His domestic measures were equally wise. By build¬ 
ing roads, draining marshes, cutting canals, and encouraging 
scientific farming, he did much to develop the resources of a 
country little favored by nature. Finally, he managed to form 
a standing army, supported by taxation and entirely dependent 
on himself. 

The Hohenzollems, from the time of the Great Elector, 
devoted themselves consistently to the upbuilding of their 
military forces. Prussia was to have an army Prussian 
sufficiently strong to defend a kingdom without n^tarism 
natural boundaries and stretching in detached provinces all 
the way from the Rhine to the Niemen. The soldiers at first 
were volunteers, recruited in different parts of Germany, 
but it became necessary to fill up the gaps in the ranks by com¬ 
pulsory levies among the peasants. Carefully trained officers, 
appointed from the nobility and advanced only on merit, 
enforced an iron discipline. The soldiers, it was said, feared 
their commanders more than they did the enemy. 


212 The European Balance of Power 

The Great Elector’s grandson, Frederick William I, may 
stand as the representative of Prussian militarism. His brother 
Frederick monarchs were greatly amused when he formed 
William I, a company of giant grenadiers, whom he treated 
1713-1740 as p ets anc [ f or w hom he ransacked Europe. 

It was the king’s sole indulgence; otherwise he lived with 
the utmost frugality and saved every possible penny for his 
army and his war chest. At the end of Frederick William’s 
reign, Prussia, with a population of only two and a half millions, 
could put eighty thousand men in the field, half as many as 
France and nearly as many as Austria. The king himself 
did almost no fighting. He was too fond of his well-drilled 
regiments, his “blue children,” as he called them, to risk them 
in battle. What could be done with them was shown by his 
son and successor, Frederick the Great. 


youthful 

Frederick 


48. Prussia under Frederick the Great, 

1740-1786 

As crown prince of Prussia Frederick had led a hard life. 
His stern and crabbed father wished to make him only a soldier 
The and discouraged every pursuit which did not con¬ 

tribute to this end. But the young man developed 
other tastes. He learned to play the flute, re¬ 
ceived secret lessons in Latin, read French plays, and filled his 
mind with the speculations of French philosophers. William, 
seeing his son apparently absorbed in frivolity, treated him 
with such harshness that he even tried to run away. The 
attempt failed, and the crown prince lay for a time under 
sentence of death as a deserter. His punishment took the 
form of an arduous, slavelike training for the duties of future 
kingship. “If he kicks or rears again,” said his father, “he 
shall forfeit the succession to the crown, and even life itself.” 
But Frederick did not kick or rear again. Henceforth he labored 
so diligently as to win back the esteem of his father, who no 
longer feared to leave the throne to one unworthy of occupy¬ 
ing it. 

Frederick became king at the age of twenty-eight. He was 


Prussia under Frederick the Great 213 

rather below the average height and inclined to stoutness, good 
looking, with the fair hair of North Germans and 

Fredericks 

blue-gray eyes of extraordinary brilliancy. His personality 
character had been shaped by the stern experiences ^ 

. x character 

of his youth, which left him selfish and unsym¬ 
pathetic, cynical and crafty. He was not a man to inspire 
affection among his in¬ 
timates, but with the 
mass of his subjects 
he was undeniably 
popular. Innumerable 
stories circulated in 
Prussia about the sim¬ 
plicity, good humor, 
and devotion to duty 
of old “ Father Fritz.” 

The year 1740, when 
both Frederick and 
Maria Theresa mounted 
the throne, saw the 
beginning of a long 
struggle between them. 

The responsibility for 
it rests on Frederick’s 
shoulders. The Prus- Frederick the Great 

sian king coveted Sile- a painting by H - Pataky ' 

sia, an Austrian province lying to the southeast of Branden¬ 
burg and mainly German in population. Of all Acquisition 
the Hapsburg possessions it was the one most of Silesia 
useful to the Hohenzollems. Frederick suddenly led his 
army into Silesia and overran the country without much diffi¬ 
culty. No justification existed for this action. As the king 
afterwards confessed in his Memoirs , “Ambition, interest, 
and desire of making people talk about me carried the day; 
and I decided for war.” 

Frederick’s action precipitated a general European conflict. 
France, Spain, and Bavaria allied themselves with Prussia, 












214 The European Balance of Power 

in order to partition the Hapsburg possessions, while Great 
Britain and Holland, anxious to preserve the 
balance of power, took the side of Austria. Things 
might have gone hard with Maria Theresa but for 
the courage and energy which she displayed and the 
support of her Hungarian subjects. She had to cede Silesia to 
Frederick, but lost no other territory. In 1748 all the warring 
countries agreed to a mutual restoration of conquests (with the 
exception of Silesia) and signed the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 1 

Maria Theresa still hoped to recover her lost province. 
As most of the European sovereigns were either afraid or 
^ , , , jealous of Frederick, she found no great diffi- 

the Seven culty in forming a coalition against him. Russia, 

1756^ War ’ France, Sweden, and Saxony entered it. Most 
of Europe thus united in arms to dismember the 
small Prussian state. 

It happened, however, that at the head of this small state 
was a man of military genius, capable of infusing into others 
Course his own undaunted spirit and supported by sub- 

of the war j ec ts disciplined, patient, and loyal. Further¬ 
more, Great Britain in the Seven Years’ War was an ally of 
Prussia. British gold subsidized the Prussian armies, and 
British troops, by fighting the French in Germany, India, and 
America, weakened Prussia’s most dangerous enemy. Fred¬ 
erick conducted a purely defensive warfare, thrusting now 
here and now there against his slower-moving adversaries, 
who never learned to act in concert and exert their full force 
simultaneously. Even so, the struggle was desperately un¬ 
equal. The Russians occupied East Prussia, penetrated 
Brandenburg, and even captured Berlin. Faced by the gradual 
wearing-down of his armies, an empty treasury, and an im¬ 
poverished country, Frederick more than once meditated 
suicide. What saved him was the accession of a new tsar. 
This ruler happened to be a warm admirer of the Prussian king 
and at once withdrew from the war. Maria Theresa, deprived 
of her eastern ally, now had to come to terms and leave Fred- 

1 For the War of the Austrian Succession outside of Europe see pp. 234 and 260. 


War of the 
Austrian 
Succession, 
1740-1748 
























































































































































. 






























: 

u \\ ...v - • 





.. ' 

. 








■ 




















. 






















. 






































































Poland 


215 


erick in secure possession of Silesia. Soon afterwards the 
Peace of Paris between France and Great Britain brought the 
Seven Years’ War to an end (1763). 1 

This most bloody contest, which cost the lives of nearly 
a million men, seemed to settle little or nothing in Europe 
except the ownership of Silesia. Yet the Seven i SSU e of 
Years’ War really marks an epoch in European the war 
history. The young Prussian kingdom appeared henceforth 
as one of the great powers of the Continent and as the only 
rival in Germany of the old Hapsburg monarchy. From this 
time it was inevitable that Prussia and Austria would struggle 
for predominance, and that the smaller German states would 
group themselves around one or the other. Frederick, of 
course, like all the Hohenzollems-, fought simply for the ag¬ 
grandizement of Prussia, but the results of his work were dis¬ 
closed a century later when the German Empire came into 
being. 

49. Poland 

Our first glimpse of the Poles reveals them as a Slavic people, 
still wild and heathen, who occupied the region between the 
upper waters of the Oder and the Vistula. They poleg 
began to adopt Roman Christianity toward the 
close of the tenth century. The Poles suffered terribly from 
the Mongol invasions, but, unlike the Russians, never bowed 
to the yoke of the Great Khan. The military-religious order 
of the Teutonic Knights also made persistent attacks on the 
Poles, thus endeavoring, even in medieval times, to bring their 
country within the German sphere of influence. 

The early history of the Poles is closely linked with that 
of the Lithuanians, a kindred though distinct people. The 
Lithuanians originally dwelt among the forests Lithuanians 
and marshes of the Niemen River. They were 
almost the last of the barbarous inhabitants of Europe to be 
civilized and Christianized. 

Common fear, at first of the Germans and then of the Rus¬ 
sians, brought the Poles and Lithuanians together. By the 

1 For the Seven Years’ War outside of Europe, see pages 235 and 260. 


2l6 


The European Balance of Power 



Union of Lublin (1569) Poland proper and the grand duchy 
Union of °f Lithuania became a single state, with one king, 

Poles and one Diet, and one currency. After the union the 
Lithuanians Polish capital of Cracow gave way to War¬ 

saw, now one of the largest and finest cities of eastern Europe. 







































Poland 


217 



The Partition of Poland 

A contemporary cartoon which represents Catherine II, Joseph II, and Frederick II 
pointing out on the map the boundaries of Poland as divided between them. Stanis¬ 
laus II, the Polish king, is trying to keep his crown from falling off his bead. 

Poland, as the new state may be henceforth called, was 
badly made. It formed an immense, monotonous plain, 
reaching from the Baltic almost to the Black Frontiers of 
Sea. No natural barriers of rivers or moun- Poland 
tains clearly separated the country from Russia on the east, 
the lands of the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs on the west, 
and the Ottoman Empire on the south. Even the Baltic Sea 


















2l8 


The European Balance of Power 

did not provide a continuous boundary on the north, for here 
the duchy of East Prussia cut deeply into Polish territory. 
Poland, with its artificial frontiers, lacked geographical unity. 





►Vienna 


I N G A R Y _ _ Boundaries of 

‘ Poland in 1772 

Longitude East 24°from Greenwich 


'Black 1 
Sea 


Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795 a.d. 


Poland was not racially compact. Besides Poles and Lithu¬ 
anians, the inhabitants included many Russians, a considerable 
inhabitants number of Germans and Swedes, and a large 
of Poland Jewish population in the towns. The differences 
between them in race and language were accentuated by reli¬ 
gious dissensions. The Poles and most of the Lithuanians 
belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, the Germans and 
Swedes adhered to Lutheranism, while the Russians accepted 
the Greek Orthodox faith. 

















































Poland 


219 


Feudalism, though almost extinct in western Europe, 
flourished in Poland. There were more than a million Polish 
nobles, mostly very poor, but each one owning Social 
a share of the land. No large and wealthy middle conditions 
class existed. The peasants were miserable serfs, m Poland 
over whom their lords had the power of life and death. 

The Polish monarchy was elective, not hereditary, an ar¬ 
rangement which converted the kings into mere puppets of 
the noble electors. A Polish sovereign could j> 0 ii t i ca i 
neither make war or peace, nor pass laws, nor conditions 
levy taxes without the consent of the Polish m Poland 
national assembly. In this body, which was composed of 
representatives of the nobil¬ 
ity, any member by his 
single adverse vote — “I 
object”—could block pro¬ 
posed legislation. The re¬ 
sult was that the nobles 
seldom passed any measures 
except those which in¬ 
creased their own power 
and privileges. The won¬ 
der is, not that Poland col¬ 
lapsed, but that it survived 
so long under such a system 
of government. 

Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia had long interfered 
in the choice of Polish 
rulers. Now they began 
to annex Polish territory. It was not necessary to conquer 
the country, but only to divide it up like a 
thing ownerless and dead. In 1772 Catherine II tion> 1772 
joined with Maria Theresa and Frederick the 
Great in the first partition of Poland. Russia took a strip 
east of the Dima and Dnieper rivers inhabited entirely by 
Russians. Austria took Galicia and neighboring lands occupied 



Tadeusz Kosciusko 
A fter a painting by Joseph Grassi. 



220 The European Balance of Power 

by Poles and Russians. Prussia received the coveted West 
Prussia, whose inhabitants were mainly Germans. Altogether 
Poland lost about one-third of its territory. 

The first partition opened the eyes of the Polish nobles to the 
ruin which threatened their country. Something like a patriotic 
Second and s P^ r ^ now developed, and efforts began to remove 
third the glaring absurdities of the old government. 

1793 ^ 1795 The reform movement encountered the opposition 
of the neighboring sovereigns, who wished to keep 
Poland as weak as possible in order to have an excuse for further 
spoliation. The second partition (1793), in which only Russia 
and Prussia shared, cut deeply into Poland. Two years later 
came the final dismemberment of the country among its three 
neighbors. The brave though futile resistance of the Polish 
patriots, led by Kosciuszko, who had fought under Washington 
in the Revolutionary War, threw a gleam of glory upon the last 
days of the expiring kingdom. 

Neither Great Britain nor France interfered to save the 
Non- Poles. Great Britain was fully occupied with 

intervention h er rebellious American colonies, while France, 

then ruled by the wretched Louis XV, had for the time being 
lost all weight in the councils of Europe. 

The suggestion for the dismemberment of Poland came from 
Frederick the Great, who with his usual frankness admitted 
Responsibil- that ^ was an a °t brigands. In Catherine II 

ity for the he found an ally as unprincipled as himself. Maria 

partitions Theresa expressed horror at the crime and even 

declared that it would remain a blot on her whole reign. “She 
wept indeed, but she took.” 

This shameful violation of international law produced a 
Polish Question. From the eighteenth century to the twen- 
The Polish tieth century the Poles never ceased to be restless 

Question an d unhappy under foreign overlords. They 

developed a new national consciousness after the loss of their 
freedom, and the severest measures of repression failed to 
break their spirit. One happy result of the World War has 
been the restoration of Poland as an independent country. 


221 


Great Britain and George III 

50. Great Britain and George III 

At a time when absolute monarchs held sway in Prussia, 
Russia, Austria, France, and other Continental countries, 
the people of Great Britain had a constitutional George j 
monarchy limited by Parliament. The con- and 
cessions which they had wrung from their re- George 11 
luctant sovereigns in the seventeenth century were embodied 
in great state papers, including the Petition of Right, the 
Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill of Rights. To these docu¬ 
ments of political liberty was added the Act of Settlement in 
1701, which led, thirteen years later, to the accession of the 
first of the Hanoverians. 1 George I could not speak English 
and preferred Hanover to his adopted country. George II, 
though less a German than his father, also took more interest 
in Hanoverian than in British affairs. Both kings were there¬ 
fore willing to give their ministers a free hand in government. 
The result was that under the first two Georges what is called 
the cabinet system assumed very much its present form. 

The cabinet consists of a small number of ministers, who 
sit in Parliament and shape legislative measures. This body 
received its name because it met, not in the larger Development 
council chamber, but in a “cabinet,” or smaller of the 
room, apart. The development of political parties cabmet 
during the reign of William III made it desirable for the king 
to select all his cabinet ministers from that party — either 
Whigs or Tories — which commanded a majority in the House 
of Commons, for otherwise the royal measures were likely to 
encounter opposition. King William and Queen Anne always 
attended cabinet meetings; George I did not do so because 
he could not either understand or be understood in the de¬ 
liberations. Since this time the British sovereign has not 
been a member of the cabinet. His place is taken by the 
prime minister,’or premier. 

The first two Hanoverians naturally favored the Whigs, 
who had brought about the “Glorious Revolution” and passed 
the Act of Settlement. 1 The Whig party included the great 

1 See page 174. 


222 


The European Balance of Power 


ministry, 

1721-1742 


lords, most of the bishops and town clergy, the Nonconform- 
The Whig ists, and the merchants, shopkeepers and other 
ascendancy members of the middle class. The Tories, whose 
strength lay in the landed gentry and rural clergy, were very 
unpopular, being supposed to desire a second restoration of 
the Stuarts. 1 The Whigs, in consequence, monopolized office 

for more than half a cen¬ 
tury. They kept a large 
majority in the House of 
Commons and practically 
decided who should be 
members of the all-power¬ 
ful cabinet. 

The leading man in the 
Whig cabinet for many 

Walpole’s y ears was Sir 

Robert Wal¬ 
pole. We may 
call him the first prime min¬ 
ister, though he did not 
actually have that title. 
Walpole followed a peace¬ 
ful policy, aimed to keep 
Great Britain out of Con¬ 
tinental entanglements, and fostered British trade and industry. 
In order to maintain the Whig majority, Walpole bought votes 
unblushingly and, when open bribery would not suffice, cor¬ 
rupted members of the House of Commons by gifts of offices 
with large pay and few or no duties. “All these men have 
their price,” he once remarked, pointing to a group of com¬ 
moners. 

After Walpole the Whigs found a leader in William Pitt, 
the Elder, a fiery orator, an ardent patriot, and an incorruptible 
statesman. He became the real, though not the nominal, head 

1 Namely, James, the “Old Pretender,” son of James II by his second wife, 
and his grandson Charles Edward, the “Young Pretender.” Their supporters 
were called “Jacobites” (Latin Jacobus, James). 



A Politician 

After a cartoon by W. Hogarth. 




Great Britain and George III 


223 


of the cabinet shortly after the opening of the Seven Years’ 
War. It was a dark hour for the British. Frederick the 
Great, their ally on the Continent, had met william 
severe reverses, and the French under Montcalm Pitt, the 
threatened to overrun the American colonies. 

But Pitt had full confidence in his ability. “ I am sure,” he 
said, “ that I can save the country, and that no one else 
can.” And save it 
he did. The “ Great 
Commoner” infused 
new vigor into the 
conduct of the war; 
aroused the martial 
spirit of the nation; 
and selected the com¬ 
manders who gained 
victory after victory 
over the French on 
the sea, in India, and 
in America. Great 
Britain, as Frederick 
the Great said, had 
at length “borne a 
man.” Thanks to 
Pitt’s memorable lead¬ 
ership, that country 
emerged from the Seven 
Years’ War a world- 
power and great im¬ 
perial state. 

The accession in 1760 of George III marked a notable at¬ 
tempt to revive in Great Britain the ideas of personal rule 
associated with the Stuarts. “ George, be a king,” Personal 
his German mother had told him, and this advice ^ 

he tried his best to follow. Taking advantage eorg 
of a House of Commons then utterly unrepresentative of the 



William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 

After a painting by Richard Brompton in the National 
Portrait Gallery, London. 



224 The European Balance of Power 


people and packed with his supporters (the “king’s friends”), 
George III set about the restoration of absolutism. His money, 
patronage, and influence were liberally used to bribe and 
reward the men who would do the royal bidding. 

After ten years of un¬ 
remitting effort the triumph 

Lord North’s of Geor § e 111 
ministry, appeared to be 

mtH1782 complete. Pitt 
and the Whigs retired to 
the background, and a Tory 
ministry, headed by Lord 
North, came into office. 
North was a mere figure¬ 
head; behind the scenes 
and moving them as he 
willed stood the sinister 
figure of the king. To 
this would-be despot, there¬ 
fore, belongs the chief re¬ 
sponsibility for the measures 
of oppression which pro¬ 
voked the resistance of 
the Thirteen Colonies and 
resulted in their separation 
from the mother country. The American Revolution was to 
a large extent the work of George III. 

The failure of George III to subdue the colonists led to a 
political upheaval. The House of Commons adopted a reso- 

_ . lution that “the influence of the Crown has 

Restoration . . . . .... 

of constitu- increased, is increasing, and ought to be dimm- 

tionai ished.” Lord North’s ministry resigned, and 

monarchy ... .. . J ° 

the discredited king became the most unpopular 

of sovereigns. Great Britain now returned to the principles 

of constitutional or limited monarchy, which have since been 

adopted by so many countries in the Old World. In the 

New World, as we shall shortly learn, the American Revolution 



George III 

After a painting by John Zoffany 
in Buckingham Palace, London. 






Great Britain and George III 



gave birth to a nation dedicated to the principles of republican 
government. 



Studies 


i. On an outline map indicate 
the territorial gains made by Rus¬ 
sia in Europe under Peter the 
Great. 2. On an outline map in¬ 
dicate the additions to the Hohen- 


zollern dominions made by Fred¬ 
erick the Great. 3. What illus¬ 
trations of international immo¬ 
rality are found in this chapter? 
4. How was Russia until the time 


of Peter the Great rather an “an¬ 
nex of Asia” than a part of Eu¬ 
rope? 5. “Russia is the last- 
born child of European civiliza¬ 
tion.” Comment on this state¬ 
ment. 6. What did Peter the 
Great mean by saying, “It is not 
land I want, but water”? 7. “The 
Dnieper made Russia Byzantine, 


Frederick, Lord North 

After a painting by Nathaniel Dance. 


the Volga made it Asiatic. It was 

for the Neva to make it European.” Can you explain this statement ? 8. Why has 

Charles XII been called the “last of the Vikings”? 9. Why has the defeat of 
Charles XII at Poltava been included among the world's decisive battles? 10. On 
the map (page 196) indicate the Russian acquisitions from Sweden, Poland, and 
Turkey, respectively, to the end of the eighteenth century, n. Enumerate the 
principal Hapsburg possessions in 1526 (map on page 208). What perrhanent ad¬ 
ditions of territory were made between 1526 and 1789? 12. Account for the develop¬ 

ment of both absolutism and militarism in Prussia. 13. How did Frederick II 
win the designation of “the Great”? 14. Why may the Polish state be described 
as both a monarchy and a republic? 15. Compare Russia’s share of Poland with 
the shares of Austria and Prussia (map on page 218). 16. Show that the geographical 

situation of West Prussia made it an extremely important addition to the Hohenzol- 
lern possessions. 17. What is “cabinet government”? 18. What did George II 
mean by saying that “ministers are kings in this country”? 19. Mention some of 
the accusations against George III as set forth in the Declaration of Independence. 


CHAPTER VIII 


COMMERCE AND COLONIES DURING THE SEVEN- 
TEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 1 

51 . Mercantilism and Trading Companies 

Portugal and Spain had chiefly profited by the geographical 
discoveries and colonizing movements of the sixteenth century. 
New rivals The decline of these two countries after 1600 
for colonial enabled other European nations to step into 
empire their place as rivals for commerce, colonies, and 

the sovereignty of the seas. The Dutch were first in the field, 
followed later by the French and the English. 

Many motives inspired the colonizing movement of the 
seventeenth century. Political aims had considerable weight. 
Motives for Holland, France, and England wanted depend- 
coionization encies overseas as a counterpoise to those obtained 
by Portugal and Spain. The religious impulse also played a 
part, as when Jesuit missionaries penetrated the American 
wilderness to convert the Indians to Christianity and when 
the Pilgrim Fathers sought in the New World a refuge from 
persecution. But the main motive for colonization was eco¬ 
nomic in character. Colonies were planted in order to furnish 
the home land with raw materials for its manufactures, new 
markets, and favorable opportunities for the investment of 
capital in commerce and industry. 

Most European statesmen in the seventeenth century ac¬ 
cepted the principles of the mercantile system. Mercantilism 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History , chapter xxix, “The Abori¬ 
gines of the Pacific.” Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 3, “Mayflower Com¬ 
pact, 1620 No. 5, “ New England Confederation, 1643 No. 10, “Resolutions 
of the Stamp Act Congress, 1765 No. 11, “ Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776 
No. 12, “ Declaration of Independence, 1776 No. 13, “ Articles of Confedera¬ 
tion, 1777”; No. 14, “Northwest Ordinance, 1787”; No. 15, “ Constitution 
of the United States, 1789.” 


226 


Mercantilism and Trading Companies 227 

is the name given to an economic doctrine which emphasized 
the importance of manufactures and foreign The 
trade, rather than agriculture and domestic trade, mercantile 
as sources of national wealth. Some Mercantilists system 
even argued that the prosperity of a nation is in exact proportion 
to the amount of money in circulation within its borders. They 
urged, therefore, that each country should so conduct its 
dealings with other countries as to attract to itself the largest 
possible share of the precious metals. This could be most 
easily done by fostering exports of manufactures, through 
bounties and special privileges, and by discouraging imports, 
except of raw materials. If the country sold more to foreigners 
than it bought of them,* then there would be a “ favorable bal¬ 
ance of trade,” and this balance the foreigners would have tb 
make up in coin or bullion. As one Mercantilist expressed it, 
the regular means “to increase our wealth and treasure is by 
foreign trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule: to sell 
more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.” 1 

Large and flourishing colonies seemed essential to the success 
of the mercantile system. Colonies were viewed simply as 
estates to be worked for the advantage of the Mercantilism 
country fortunate enough to possess them. The and colonial 
home government did its best to prevent other pohcy 
governments from trading with its dependencies. At the same 
time, it either prohibited or placed serious restrictions on colonial 
manufactures which might compete with those of the mother 
country. Portugal and Spain in the sixteenth century, and 
now Holland, France, and England in the seventeenth century, 
pursued this colonial policy. 

The home government did not itself engage in colonial 
commerce. It ceded this privilege to private companies organ¬ 
ized for the purpose. A company, in return for Trading 
the monopoly of trade with the inhabitants of a companies 
colony, was expected to govern and protect them. 

The first form of association was the regulated company. 
Each member, after paying the entrance fee, traded with his 

1 Thomas Mun, England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, London, 1664, chap, ii. 


228 


Commerce and Colonies 


stock 

companies 


own capital at his own risk and kept his profits to himself. 
After a time this loose association gave way to the joint- 

„ . , stock company. The members contributed to 

Regulated r \ , 

and joint- a common fund and, instead of tradmg them¬ 
selves, intrusted the management of the business 
to a board of directors. Any one who invested his 
capital would then receive a “dividend” on his “shares” of the 
joint stock, provided the enterprise was successful. The 
joint-stock companies of the seventeenth century thus formed 
a connecting link with modern corporations. 

Trading companies were very numerous. For instance, 
Holland, France, England, Sweden, and Denmark, as well as 
Examples of Scotland and Prussia, each chartered its own 

trading “East India Company.” England had many 

compames trading companies, particularly .those which oper¬ 

ated in the Baltic lands, Russia, Turkey, India, Morocco, 
West Africa, and North America. 

52 . The Dutch Colonial Empire 

Holland lies at the mouths of the largest rivers of western 

Europe, the Scheldt, Meuse, and Rhine, thus securing easy 

Rise of communication with the interior. It is not far 

Holland as distant from Denmark and Norway and is only 

a commer- a f ew hours’ sail from the French and English 

cial power . . ° 

coasts. These advantages of position, combined 

with a small, infertile territory, never capable of supporting 
more than a fraction of the inhabitants by agriculture, natur¬ 
ally turned the Dutch to the sea. They began their maritime 
career as fishermen, “exchanging tons of herring for tons of 
gold,” and gradually built up an extensive transport trade 
between the Mediterranean and Baltic lands. After the dis¬ 
covery of the Cape route to the Indies, Dutch traders met 
Portuguese merchants at Lisbon and there obtained spices and 
other eastern wares for distribution throughout Europe. 

But the Dutch were soon to become seamen on a much more 
extensive scale. The union of Portugal with Spain in 1581 1 

1 Dissolved in 1640. 


West O' 40° Longitude from Greenwich 80° East 






























































































. 

' •• ■- .?! . . 























«!« 


■ 





































' 


















* • 

' 





























































1 




1 













































The Dutch Colonial Empire 229 

enabled Philip II to close the port of Lisbon to the Nether- 

landers, who had already begun their revolt against the 

Spanish monarch. Philip also seized a large 

number of Dutch ships lying in Spanish and expeditions 

Portuguese harbors, thus disclosing his purpose J° d the East 

to destroy, if possible, the profitable commerce of 

his enemies. The Dutch now began to make expeditions 



directly to the East Indies, whose trade had been monopolized 
by Portugal for almost a century. They captured many 
Portuguese and Spanish ships, obtained ports on the coasts of 
Africa and India, and soon established themselves securely in 
the Far East. 

In 1602 the Dutch government chartered the East India 
Company and gave to it the monopoly of trade and rule from 
the Cape of Good Hope eastward to the Strait Dutch 
of Magellan. The company operated chiefly East India 
in the rich islands of the Malay Archipelago. Company 
Here much bitter fighting took place with the Portuguese, 
who were finally driven from nearly all of their eastern posses¬ 
sions. Ceylon, Malacca, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and the 






















230 


Commerce and Colonies 


Moluccas, or Spice Islands, passed into the hands of the Dutch. 
The headquarters of the Dutch East India Company were 
located at Batavia in Java. This city still remains one of the 
leading commercial centers of the East Indies. 

The Dutch possessions included the Cape of Good Hope, 
where the Dutch East India Company made a permanent 
The Dutch settlement (Cape Town) in 1652. It was in- 
in South tended, at first, to be simply a way-station or 
port of refreshment for ships on the route to the 
Indies. Before long, however, Dutch emigrants began to 
arrive in increasing numbers, together with Huguenots from 
France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. These 
farmer-settlers, or Boers, passed slowly into the interior and 
laid there the foundation of Dutch sway in South Africa. 
The Cape of Good Hope became a British possession at the 
opening of the nineteenth century, but the Boer republics 
retained their independence until our own day. 



New Amsterdam in 1655 

After Van der Donck’s New Netherland. 


Fired by their success and enriched by their gains in the 
East, the Dutch started out to form another colonial empire 
in the West. It was an agent of the Dutch East 
in America India Company, Henry Hudson, who, seeking a 
northwest passage to the East Indies, discovered in 
1609 th e river which bears his name. The Dutch sent out 
ships to trade with the natives and built a fort on Manhattan 
Island. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company received a 




Rivalry of France and England in India 231 

charter for commerce and colonization between the west coast 
of Africa and the east coast of the Americas. The company’s 
little station on Manhattan Island became the flourishing port 
of New Amsterdam, from which the Dutch settlement of New 
Netherland spread up the Hudson River. The company also 
secured a large part of Guiana, as well as some of the West In¬ 
dies. New Netherland before long passed into the hands of the 
English, but Holland has still a foothold in America in the island 
of Curasao and the province of Surinam or Dutch Guiana. 

The Dutch in the seventeenth century were the leaders of 
commercial Europe. They owned more merchant ships than 
any other people and almost monopolized the commercial 
carrying trade from the East Indies and between decline of 
the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Yet with the Holland 
advent of the eighteenth century the Dutch had begun to fall 
behind their French and English rivals in the race for commerce 
and colonies. They suffered from trade warfare with England 
during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. The 
long and exhausting War of the Spanish Succession, in which 
Holland was a member of the Grand Alliance against Louis 
XIV, struck a further blow at Dutch prosperity. Though 
Holland fell from the first rank of commercial states, it has 
kept most of its dominions overseas to the present time. 

53 . Rivalry of France and England in India (to 1763 ) 

The Indian Ocean forms a vast gulf of crescent shape, having 
on the western side Africa and Madagascar and on the eastern 
side Australia and the Malay Islands, while directly The Indian 
opposite its northern extremity lies Asia. The 0cean 
Red Sea and Persian Gulf, which form the two most important 
offshoots of the Indian Ocean, approach within a short dis¬ 
tance of the Mediterranean. These maritime thoroughfares 
furnished the Mediterranean peoples with the shortest and 
most convenient routes to India, until the discovery of the 
Cape route by the Portuguese. 

The Portuguese and Dutch enjoyed a profitable trade with 
India, which supplied them with cotton, indigo, spices, dyes, 


232 


Commerce and Colonies 



drugs, precious stones, and other articles of luxury India and 
in European demand. In the seventeenth century, Eur °P e 
however, the French and English became the principal competi- 































































Rivalry of France and England in India 233 

tors for Indian trade, and in the eighteenth century the rivalry 
between them led to the defeat of the French and the secure 
establishment of England’s rule over India. A region half as 
large as Europe, with a population of about 200,000,000, began 
to pass under the control of a single European power. 

The conquest of India was made possible by the decline of 
the Mogul (or Mongol) Empire, which had been foimded by 
the Turkish chieftain Baber in the sixteenth India under 
century. That empire, though renowned for its the M °gu ls 
luxury and magnificence, never achieved a real unification 
of India. The country continued to be a collection of separate 
provinces, whose inhabitants were isolated from one another by 
differences of race, language, and religion. The Indian peoples 
had no feeling of nationality, and when the Mogul Empire 
broke up they were ready, with perfect indifference, to accept 
any other government able to keep order among them. 

Neither France nor England began by making annexations 
in India. Each country merely established an East India 
company, giving to it a monopoly of trade between The East 
India and the home land. The French com- India 
pany, chartered during the reign of Louis XIV, compames 
had its headquarters at Pondicherry, on the southeastern 
ooast of India. The English company, which received its 
first charter from Elizabeth in 1600, possessed three widely 
separated settlements at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. 

The French were the first to attempt the task of empire¬ 
making in India, under the leadership of Dupleix, the able 
governor-general of Pondicherry. Dupleix saw Dupleix 
clearly that the dissolution of the Mogul Empire 
and the defenseless condition of the native states opened the 
way to the European conquest of India. In order that the 
French should profit by this unique opportunity, he entered 
into alliance with some of the Indian princes, fortified Pondi¬ 
cherry, and managed to form an army by enlisting native sol¬ 
diers (“sepoys”), who were drilled by French officers. The 
English afterwards did the same thing, and to this day “se¬ 
poys” comprise the bulk of the Indian forces of Great Britain. 


234 


Commerce and Colonies 



Upon the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession the 
French captured Madras, but it was restored to the English 
by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Dupleix continued, however, 
to extend French influence in the south and east of India. 

The English could not look unconcernedly upon the progress 
of their French rivals, and it was a young Englishman, Robert 
CJive Clive, whose genius checkmated Dupleix’s am¬ 

bitious schemes. To Clive, more than any other 
man, Great Britain owes the beginning of her present Indian 

Empire. Clive had been a clerk 
in the employ of the East 
India Company at Madras, but 
he soon got an ensign’s commis¬ 
sion and entered upon a military 
career. His first success was 
gained in southeastern India. 
Here he managed to overthrow 
an upstart prince whom Du¬ 
pleix supported and to restore 
English influence in that part of 
the peninsula. Dupleix was re¬ 
called in disgrace to France, 
where he died a disappointed 
man. 

Clive now found an oppor¬ 
tunity for even greater service. 
The native ruler of Bengal, a 
man ferocious in temper and 
A Mogul Emperor consumed with hatred of the 

English, suddenly captured 
Calcutta. He allowed one hundred and forty-six prisoners to be 
confined in a tiny room, where they passed the sultry night 
Battle of without water. Next morning only twenty-three 

Plassey, came forth alive from the “ Black Hole.” This 

1757 

atrocity was sufficiently avenged by the wonder¬ 
ful victory of Plassey, in which Clive with a handful of soldiers 
overthrew an Indian army of fifty thousand men. Plassey 







Virginia and Massachusetts 235 


showed conclusively that native troops were no match for 
Europeans and made the English masters of Bengal, with its 
rich delta, mighty rivers, and teeming population: 

Meanwhile, the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in Europe 
renewed the contest between France and England on Indian 
soil. The English were completely successful, The Seven 
for their control of the sea prevented the French Years’ War 
government from sending reinforcements to India. m India 
France recovered her territorial possessions by the Peace of 
Paris in 1763, but agreed not to fortify them. This meant that 
she gave up her dream of an empire in India. England hence¬ 
forth enjoyed a free hand in shaping the destinies of that vast 
region. 

54. Virginia and Massachusetts 


Englishmen, under the Tudors, had done very little as colo¬ 
nizers of the New World. Henry VII, indeed, encouraged 
John Cabot to make the discoveries of 1497-1498, L ateness 0 f 
on which the English claims to North America English 
were based. During Elizabeth’s reign Sir Martin colomzatlon 
Frobisher explored the coasts of Greenland and Labrador, and 
another “sea-dog,” Sir Humphrey Gilbert, sought without 
success to colonize Newfoundland. Gilbert’s half-brother, 
Sir Walter Raleigh, planned a settlement in the region then 
called Virginia, 1 but lack of support from home caused it to 
perish miserably. The truth was that sixteenth-century 
Englishmen had first to break the power of Spain in Europe 
before they could give much attention to America. The des¬ 
truction of the Spanish Armada in 1588 at length enabled them 
to establish American colonies without interference from Spain. 

Having found the task of private colonization too great for 
his energies and purse, Raleigh assigned his interests in Virginia 
to a group of merchants and adventurers. Noth- The London 
ing was done for several years, but at last in 1606 p^ d mouth 
they obtained from James I a charter for the companies, 
incorporation of a joint-stock association, whose 1606 
members resided in London and Plymouth. One branch of 
1 After Elizabeth, the “Virgin Queen.” 


Commerce and Colonies 



this organization was hence called the London Company and 
the other, the Plymouth Company. The charter claimed for 
England all' the North American continent from the thirty- 

fourth to the forty-fifth 
degree, north latitude. The 
London Company had the 
exclusive right to colonize 
the territory between Cape 
Fear and the Potomac 
River, and the Plymouth 
Company had a similar 
right in the area between 
the Hudson River and the 
Bay of Fundy. Both com¬ 
panies might occupy the 
intervening region, but 
neither was to establish a 
colony within one hundred 
miles of a settlement made 
by the other. 

•The London Company promptly took steps to colonize its 
share of Virginia. A party of one hundred and twenty men 
The James- kft the s h° res °f England on New Year’s Day, 
town settle- 1607, and after four wearisome months on the 
ment, 1607 ocean reached the capes of Chesapeake Bay. 1 
They entered the bay, and on a peninsula in the broad river 
which they named after the king who gave them their charter 
founded Jamestown, the first permanent settlement of English¬ 
men in the New World. 

Colonization in the seventeenth century formed a death- 
struggle with nature; and the privations endured by the settlers 
of Virginia are a familiar story in American history. 
Of more than six thousand people who arrived 
between 1607 and 1624, four-fifths died of hunger and disease 
or at the hands of the Indians. The future of Virginia was not 
assured until the colonists turned to tobacco raising, for which 
1 Named Cape Henry and Cape Charles, for the two sons of James I. 


Virginia 


Virginia 









237 


Virginia and Massachusetts 

the yellow soil is unsurpassed. “The weed,” as King James 
called it in derision, brought a high price abroad, and its culti¬ 
vation quickly became the principal industry of Virginia. 
It was the only staple product which the colony exported to 
England. 

The London Company did not long enjoy the favor of 
James I. He had no liking for the Puritans who controlled it 
and turned the meetings of the stockholders into yi rg i nia a 
political gatherings for resistance to his measures, royal prov- 
James finally brought suit against the company ince ’ 1624 
in the courts and had its charter annulled. Virginia now be- 



Ruins of the Brick Church at Jamestown 

Jamestown is now an island, for the sandy beach which once connected it 
with the mainland has disappeared. Only the ruins pf the brick church 
erected in 1639 and some of the tombs in the churchyard remain. 


came a royal province and so remained throughout the colonial 
period, except for a few years of Puritan supremacy in England. 
The English king appointed the governor, but as a rule allowed 
the settlers to manage their own affairs. 

The colonization of New England was begun by the Pil¬ 
grims, who belonged to the sect of Independents or Separatists. 1 

1 See page 164 and note 1. 





238 


Commerce and Colonies 


Persecuted 
The Pilgrims 


by Elizabeth and James I, many Separatists 
went to Holland, where liberty of conscience was 
allowed. The prospect of losing their English 
speech and customs among the Dutch did not please them, 
and presently the exiles began to long for another home, where 



Captain John Smith’s Map of New England 

In 1614 Captain John Smith explored the American coast from Maine to Cape Cod and 
called the country New England. On the map which he drew, the young son of James I, 
afterwards Charles I, gave English and Scottish names to more than thirty places. Of 
these, Charles River, Cape Ann, and Plymouth still remain as originally designated. 


“they might more glorify God, do more good to their country, 
better provide for their posterity, and live to be more refreshed 
by their labors, than ever they could do in Holland.” One 
congregation, dwelling at Leyden, decided to emigrate to 
America. Having obtained from the London Company a 
patent to colonize within the limits of Virginia, a party of one 
hundred and two men, women, and children set sail in the 
































Virginia and Massachusetts 239 

Mayflower . They intended to settle somewhere south of the 
Hudson River, but when they sighted land it was the peninsula 
of Cape Cod. After exploring the coast, the emigrants came to 
the sheltered harbor which John Smith had already named 
Plymouth on his map, and here they landed. 

The Pilgrims found 
themselves outside 
the ter- The May . 
r i t o r y flower Com- 
granted pact 
to the London Com¬ 
pany and hence could 
not use their patent 
for colonization. Be¬ 
fore leaving the May¬ 
flower, therefore, they 
took steps to provide 
for the orderly rule 
of their little com¬ 
munity. The leaders 
of the party signed 
their names to an 
agreement establishing a “civil body politic,” and they prom¬ 
ised to obey all laws necessary for the “general good.” The 
Mayflower Compact reveals the Pilgrim instinct for self- 
government. 

To settle on the New England coast in mid-winter was a grim 
business. 1 More than half of the Pilgrims died before spring 
came, and after ten years they had increased to Tfae 
little more than three hundred. Yet the Pilgrims Plymouth 
did not despair, for they were determined to found ^Q ement ’ 
a religious asylum in the American wilderness. 

“Let it not be grievous to you,” said their friends in England, 
“that you have been instruments to break the ice for others; 
the honor shall be yours to the world’s end.” Instruments 
they were. The Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth formed the 

1 Read The Landing of the Pilgrims by Felicia Hemans. 



The “ Mayflower ” 

From the model in the Smithsonian Institution 
at Washington. 







240 


Commerce and Colonies 


forerunner of that great Puritan exodus which in the third 
decade of the seventeenth century colonized Massachusetts. 

The colony of Massachusetts 1 had its origin in the desire 
of the Puritans to found a self-governing community far re- 
Massa _ moved from Stuart absolutism in politics and 
chusetts, religion. Some Puritan leaders purchased a large 
tract of land from the Plymouth Company and 
obtained from Charles I a charter incorporating them as the 


Su.GiccZs <f our dv'ta.ct ford Xft&zfne? 

jfxiU, <sa~- r ^ 

4»fj -£*a*n^‘Xnct AoTiou.'t' of our A^fCL.Cou.rtf*!^ a 'boyxgd'do 

fa'ndjf’iCo font e, •>uy fTt> ifof Y'irqr\*xa?- 0 q 3~ 
'£AeJh Sofc.*a»tty (S_oM.ufu.arfy utf yffje-ytcc of C\od,txnt4 

0-nc of K-noffU. t*; Cotue-rwnfjg^Co-mftnt cut*feCu.cs -for? of fier oidoex 
C\uL& orferxu^^^rejttruoftorx t 

£/ter*nt&- offcnis oftfafifj tend fiy fiet'/u.C /Ce&rof £* 

Co-n'fffu/e. , aurdr freest Z ffufA ius¥ ^eaua:(T farwCS J or ft rumtZS^ 

offct% , £r<>'»* £»**., as /A£ & /fioyjfm' 

7*>off wcc4 QjonyAJtT\\tu4 for J trt' n *- T <X& 'tpoed ofjT Co/or-xt* 'L-nf* 
wA tk nve. yrornxfo- a(P fuz Stiffrvxjfxoox arncf ofod^rtcy- fff*. tvtAtes 
'yvfie.r of w{ ^aue Aere'SJrufgx* 5 our na-mtS cef Ca^^z. 

Coddr^ is of fTcu.tmfcyf'AxJ?f £cct ~ °fJ raxcfne. °f 0x<t ~ Souerenf^ 
£ortf ftng tfhx.rn.zs of ( Lyxyftrtd j fra^cf^ y eiffifice?^ 

Glud of S^of/a-rtdfy fxfk&'C fourUtftm i)o-r *.. 1 ffo • 

The Mayflower Compact 

Facsimile from History of Plifnoth Plantation by Governor Bradford; State House, Boston 


Company of Massachusetts Bay. The “great emigration” 
began in 1630 under the guidance of John Winthrop, who 
served as the first governor. The settlers established them¬ 
selves at Salem, Boston, Charlestown, and other places on 
Massachusetts Bay. More than twenty thousand Puritans 
left England for America during the next ten years. This was 
the period when Charles I ruled without a Parliament, and 
when Archbishop Laud harried so cruelly all who did not 

1 An Algonkin Indian word meaning “ Great Hills.” 


241 


Virginia and Massachusetts 

conform to the Anglican Church. After the opening of the 
Long Parliament in 1640 the Puritans found enough to do 
at home, and Massachusetts received few more immigrants 
during the colonial period. 

The charter which Charles I gave to the Puritans did not 
require that the seat of government should be in England, 

as had been the case with previous grants. Ac- 

.4 0 . Massachu- 

cordingly, the company decided to take its charter setts a royal 

to Massachusetts and to found there an almost y™P nce ’ 

independent state. King Charles was too busy 

with domestic problems to interfere with these bold Puritans 



overseas, and their friend, Cromwell, after his rise to power, 
did not molest them. Charles II, however, took away their 
cherished charter, and James II treated the liberties of English¬ 
men in America with the same contempt with which he treated 








242 


Commerce and Colonies 


their liberties at home. Soon after his accession William III 
granted them a new charter. It allowed the people to have a 
representative assembly, but required them to accept a governor 
appointed by the king. Massachusetts henceforth formed a 
royal province. 

55. The Thirteen Colonies 


Massachusetts was the foremost of the Puritan settle¬ 
ments. Before the end of the seventeenth century it had 
The New absorbed Plymouth and had thrown out the off- 


England 

colonies 


shoots which presently became Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, and New Hampshire. 1 These four 
New England colonies formed a distinct geographical group, 

while the cir¬ 
cumstances of 
their foundation 
also gave them a 
political and re¬ 
ligious character 
unlike that of the 
other colonies. 

Another group 
of colonies grew 
up around Vir- 

giniaas 

Maryland , 

their 

center. To the 
north of Virginia 
arose the colony 
of Maryland, 
which Charles I 
granted to George 
the charter was 
Cecil, who estab- 



The Middle Colonies 

Calvert, Lord Baltimore. He died before 
actually issued, and it was given to his son 

1 The territory now included within Vermont was claimed by both New York 
and New Hampshire in colonial times. Maine continued to be a part of Massa¬ 
chusetts until 1820. 













The Thirteen Colonies 


2 43 

lished the first settlement. Maryland, so called in honor of 
the queen of England, became a refuge for persecuted Roman 
Catholics, as well as a great family estate of the barons of 
Baltimore. The charter conferred upon them the rights and 
privileges of feudal 
lords. They owned 
the land, appointed 
officers, and made 
the laws with the 
assistance of the free 
settlers. Maryland, 
therefore, stands as 
the type of a pro¬ 
prietary colony. 

To the south of 
Virginia arose the 
colony The 
Of Caro- Carolinas 

lina, Out of a grant 
by Charles II to a 


A brief Account of the 

$johtnce of ^ennfj)lhama. 

Lately Granted by the 

KING. 

Under the GREAT 

Seal of England, 
WILLIAM PENN 


AND HIS 


Heirs and Affigns. 


S ince (by the good Providence ol Cod. and the Favour of the King) t 
Country in Entries is fallen to my Lot, I thought it not left my 
Duty, then my Honcfl Intercfl, to give fomc publfck notice of It to 
tbc World, thor thofc of our own or other Nations, that arc inclin’d 
roTranfport Thetnfelves or Families beyond the Seas, may find ano¬ 
ther Country added to their Choice; that if they fhall happen to like 
the Place, Conditions, and Government, (fo far as the prefent Infancy of thirgt 
will allow us any profpeOI they may, if they plcafc. fix with me in the Pro¬ 
vince, hereafter deferibed. 


number of nobles 
whose property had 
been confiscated in 
the Great Rebellion. 

The charter created 
a proprietary form 
of government simi¬ 
lar to that of Mary¬ 
land. It proved to 
be very unpopular, 
however, and in the 
eighteenth century the two Carolinas — for they had now 
divided — voluntarily put themselves under the king’s protec¬ 
tion as royal colonies. 

The most important colonial achievement of the reign of 
Charles II was the filling up of the gap between the northern 
and southern colonies. English settlement in this central 


I. Tbc KING’S Title to thx Count ry before he grunted it. 

It is the Jm Ctnt'mm, or Law of Nations, that what ever Wade, or oncuf- 
ted Country, is the Difcovcry of any Prince, it is the right of that Prince that 
was at the Charge of the Difcovery: Now this Provnxt is a Member of that 
pan of America, which the King of England! Anceftots have been attheCharge 
of Difcovcring, and which thty and ht have taken great cate to preferve and 
Improve. 

11. William. 

First Page or Penn’s “ Account of 
Pennsylvania ” 

Reduced facsimile. 


244 


Commerce and Colonies 



87 Longitudfe 


ipte"' 

feSTnee 


few are Ba$ 
%CLen/open 


reiiarl 33 - 

t&sr 

l^Warl e SoU ni 




FRENCH 


ENGLISH V///. 


DUTCH 


8WEOISH 


SPANISH 


vaI'-'N q ’ 3 

ifSUANO 

tel 492 . 


SCALE OF MILES 


The Settlement of North America by the Middle of the 

Seventeenth Century 




























































































































The Thirteen Colonies 


245 

region began as the result of conquest from another European 
power. New York was originally New Nether- New York 
land, a Dutch colony planted by the Dutch and New 
West India Company. In 1664 the colony passed ^ ersey 
into the hands of the English. Charles II granted it to his 
brother James, duke of York and Albany, who afterwards be¬ 
came king of England. James, in turn, bestowed the region 
between the Hudson and Delaware rivers to two court 
favorites, and it received the name of New Jersey. The 
English possessions now stretched without a break along the 
whole Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Florida. 

The colony of Pennsylvania likewise dated from the time of 
Charles II, who granted it to William Penn, the Quaker, as 
an asylum for his sect. Penn was made proprietor, p ennS yi van i a 
with much the same rights which Lord Baltimore and 
possessed in Maryland. The small Swedish settle- DelaWare 
ment on the Delaware had been established by the South Com¬ 
pany of Sweden, under the auspices of Gustavus Adolphus, who 
hoped that it would become the “jewel of his kingdom.” The 
Dutch soon annexed New Sweden, only to relinquish it, together 
with their own colony, to the English. William Penn secured 
a grant of the Delaware country, but at the opening of the eight¬ 
eenth century it became a separate colony. 

The southernmost of the Thirteen Colonies was also the last 
to be settled. James Oglethorpe, a gallant English soldier, 
founded Georgia in 1733, partly as a military Georgia 
outpost against the Spaniards, but chiefly as a 
resort for poor debtors. The colony received its name in honor 
of the reigning king, George II. 

Both New England and the southern colonies were chiefly 
English in blood. Many immigrants also came from other 
parts of the British Isles, especially the so-called Anglo-Saxon 
Scotch-Irish — really Englishmen who had settled ex P ansion 
in the Lowlands of Scotland and afterwards in northeastern 
Ireland. The emigrants from Continental Europe included 
French Huguenots, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
and Germans from the Rhenish Palatinate. The population 


246 


Commerce and Colonies 


of the middle colonies was far more mixed. Besides English 
and a sprinkling of Celtic Scotch and Irish, it comprised Dutch 
in New York, Swedes in Delaware, and Germans in Penn¬ 
sylvania. But neither France, Holland, Sweden, nor Germany 
contributed largely to the settlement of the Thirteen Colonies. 


56 . Transit of Civilization from England to America 

The English language prevailed almost everywhere in the 


Poor Richard, 1733 . 


A N 


Almanack 

For the Year of Chrift 

1 7 3 

Being the Firft after LEAP YEAR: 

And makes Jr net the Creation Years 

By the Account of the Eaftem Creeks 7241 

By the Latin Church, when Q cm. y* <>932 

By the Computation of IV.IV j 74 2 

By the Roman Chronology 5682 

By the Jeivlfb Rabbies 54^4 

Wherein is contained 
The Lunations, Eclipfes, Judgment of 

the Weather, Spring Tides, Planets Motions 8 c 
mutual Afpe&s, Sun and Moons Rifmg and Set¬ 
ting, Length of Days, Time of High Water, 
Fairs, Courtr, and obfcrvable Days 

Fitted to the Latitude of Forty Degrees, 

and a Meridian of Five Hours Weft from London, 
but may without fcnliblc Error, ferve all the ad¬ 
jacent Places, even from Netvfom/Vmd to Soutb- 
Carolina. 


By RICHARD SAUNDERS, Philom. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

Printed and fold by B. FRANKLIN, at the New 
_Printing Office near die Market. 

The Third Imprdfion. 

A Title-page oe “Poor Richard’s 
Almanac” 

Reduced facsimile. 


colonies, 


Language 
and folk- 
literature 


not, however, 
without quaint 
modifications 
of spelling and 
pronunciation introduced 
by emigrants from dif¬ 
ferent parts of the mother 
country. The emigrants 
also brought many prov¬ 
erbs and traditional 
sayings, some of which 
were afterwards printed 
by Benjamin Franklin in 
Poor Richard’s Almanac. 
Old ballads, once sung in 
medieval England, were 
chanted in colonial Amer¬ 
ica. Old fairy tales and 
nursery rhymes, which 
had delighted generations 
of English children, found 
equally appreciative audi¬ 
ences in the American 
wilderness. These varie¬ 
ties of folk-literature were 
not at first written down, 
but were carried in the 
memory by young and old. 
Nearly all the popular festivals of the colonists came from 









Transit of Civilization from England to America 247 


England. The only important exception was Thanksgiving 
Day, which the Pilgrims began to celebrate Popular 
immediately after their first harvest. Many festivals and 
superstitions of the Middle Ages, including those su P erstltions 
relating to astrology, unlucky days, demons, and magic, crossed 
the Atlantic to the New World. The belief in witchcraft was 
likewise very common, and at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, 
twenty persons suf¬ 



fered death for this 
supposed crime. 

Witchcraft persecu¬ 
tions also occurred 
in several other col¬ 
onies. 

Almost every vari¬ 
ety of Protestantism 

was rep- „ . 

1 Religion 

resented 
in the colonies. 

The Church of 
England from the 
start had its strong¬ 
holds in Virginia, 

Maryland, and the 
Carolinas, and later 
in New York. After 
the Revolutionary 
War it took the 
name of the Prot¬ 
estant Episcopal 
Church, but retained nearly all the Anglican doctrines and 
ceremonies. Puritanism flourished in New England, especially 
in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Puritan churches 
usually had the Congregational form. Baptists were nu¬ 
merous in Rhode Island, and Quakers in Pennsylvania. Wher¬ 
ever the Scotch-Irish settled, they established Presbyterian 
churches. 


Time euts down afl 
Both'great jnifmall 

Ifri&h'shtmtMi'Wlte 
Made David his 
UlU 

Whales in the Sea 
God's Voice obeyy 


Xerxes the great did 
die, 

And fo mult you & h 

Youth forward flips 
Death fooneft *nip% 

Zacbeus he 
Did climb the Tree 
Hrt Lord to fee, 


A Page from the “New England Primer j 

Reduced facsimile. 














Commerce and Colonies 


248 

The Toleration Act of 1689 1 commended itself to the colonists, 
many of whom were Dissenters or Nonconformists. 2 It was 
Religious generally reenacted by the colonial assemblies, 

toleration including those of Massachusetts, New York, 

and Virginia. Toleration did not extend, however, to Roman 
Catholics, who encountered much suspicion. Rhode Island, 
which Roger Williams had founded as “a shelter for persons 
distressed for conscience,” disfranchised Roman Catholics in 
the eighteenth century. Maryland began with a broad measure 
of religious liberty, for Lord Baltimore had opened the colony 



Harvard College in the Eighteenth Century 

After an early picture in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 


to Anglicans and Puritans, as well as to members of his own 
faith. Later, when the Protestants became a majority in 
Maryland, severe anti-Catholic laws were passed. Even 
Pennsylvania, where Penn had established complete toleration, 
subsequently excluded Roman Catholics from public office. 
Outside of these three colonies they remained under many 
disabilities until after the Revolution. The same was true 
of Unitarians. Jews enjoyed freedom of worship, but did not 
possess political rights. 

The Puritan clergy were generally well educated; and some 

1 See page 172. 

2 See page 169 and note 1. 














Economic Development of the Colonies 249 

of them were very learned. They introduced into the New 
World the English tradition in favor of higher Higher 
education. Harvard College was founded as early education 
as 1636, and Yale, in 1701. Before the Revolution colleges or 
universities also existed in Rhode Island (Brown), New Hamp¬ 
shire (Dartmouth), New York (King’s, later Columbia), New 
Jersey (Rutgers and Princeton), Pennsylvania (University of 
Pennsylvania), and Virginia (William and Mary 1 ). These in¬ 
stitutions devoted themselves chiefly to the training of ministers. 

New England led the other colonies in popular education. 
A Massachusetts law, enacted as early as 1647, required every 
town of fifty families to establish an elementary Common 
school where children could learn to read and schools 
write. The teachers were to be paid either by the parents of 
the children or by public taxation. Every town of one hun¬ 
dred families was further required to set up a grammar school, 
in which students might be prepared for college. This law 
became the model for similar legislation throughout the United 
States. The middle and southern colonies did not have a 
system of popular education. 

57 . Economic Development of the Colonies 

Farming was the chief occupation in colonial times. The 
Americans not only fed themselves, but also exported large 
quantities of wheat, rice, tobacco, indigo, and Colonial 
other products to the West Indies and the mother agriculture 
country. Many vegetables and fruits known in Europe early 
made their way to America, but did not displace the native 
potato in importance. The clearing of the land for agriculture 
led to a large export of lumber in the shape of boards, shingles, 
masts, and spars, and to the production of naval stores, such 
as tar, pitch, and turpentine. Cattle raising was carried on to a 
considerable extent, especially in the South. New England found 
a source of wealth in its fisheries of cod, mackerel, and whale, 
while all the colonies enjoyed a very profitable trade in furs. 

Geographic and climatic conditions largely account for the 

1 Named after King William III and his queen. 


Commerce and Colonies 


2^0 


different systems of land holding in colonial America. New 
Land holding England, so mountainous, so ill provided with 
in New navigable rivers and good harbors, with a sterile 

England so q an q a } iars h climate, naturally became a 

region of small farms and diversified crops. The circumstances 
of its colonization also helped to produce this result. The 
New Englanders settled in agricultural villages like those of the 
old England from which they came. Meadow, forest, and 
waste remained the common possession of the villagers, but each 
man received a share of the arable land to own and cultivate 
himself. In order to prevent the growth of large estates, the 
practice of primogeniture was forbidden. This system of land 
tenure fostered a democratic spirit in New England. 

Small farming and individual ownership of the land generally 
prevailed in the middle colonies. In New York, however, 
Land holding there were extensive estates on the Hudson, 
and^southern originally granted to the Dutch colonists and by 
colonies them subdivided and rented out to tenant 

farmers. No aristocrats in America so nearly resembled the 
feudal nobility of the Old World as these Dutch proprietors, 
or patroons. Virginia and Maryland, with their great bays 
and rivers, wide stretches of fertile land, and genial climate, 
proved to be well adapted to tobacco farming on a large scale. 
The colonists settled, not in compact villages, but in private 
plantations along the banks of the rivers. As time went on, 
the size of the plantations steadily increased and rose as high 
as twenty thousand acres. They were cultivated by white 
servants and negro slaves, neither of whom had any rights in 
the soil. The outcome of these conditions was social inequality 
and the growth of an aristocratic class of planters. A similar 
aristocracy grew up in the Carolinas and Georgia, where rice 
and indigo competed with tobacco as staple crops. 

The exploitation of a vast and undeveloped continent created 
a keen demand for unskilled labor. Laborers were few and 
White wages were high. On New England farms and 

those in the middle colonies the work was largely 
performed by the owner and the members of his family, some- 


Economic Development of the Colonies 251 

times with the assistance of hired “help.” Indentured 1 white 
servants also formed an important element in many colonies, 
particularly in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Of 
these, some were voluntary servants, or “redemptioners,” 
who sold their services for a limited term, usually five years, 
to pay their expenses to America. After receiving freedom, 
they often acquired farms of their own and became respected 
members of society. The involuntary servants included 


This Indenture Made Day 

in the Ye^ilproir^Lord one thoufand, feven hundred and ■£*//•** ETWE5N 



•of the Other Part, 


"WITNESSETH, thacthe fai * doth, hereby covenant, proraife 

and grant, to and with the - /its -Executors, 

Admimftratora^nd Aflign^ ftora the Pay of the Date hereof until the firft and next 
Arrival at —in America, and after for and during the Term 

of Afcizx*. _Years to ferve in fuch Service and Employment as the laid 

c/ _ or sLi? Aflign6 fhall there employ ^«^ccordingtp the 

of the Country in the like Kind. In Confideration whereof the 

_ _ doth hereby covenant and grant to,and with the laid jatta/* 

_ to pay for /%^/Paflage, and to find aJ lowAr^^Meat, Drink, Apparel 

and Lodging, with other Necefiaries, during the laidTerm j and at the End of the laid 
Term to pay unto the ufual Allowance, according to the Cuftom of the Country 
in the like Kind. IN WITNESS whereof the Parties above-mentioned to thefe 
Indentures have interchangeably put their Hands and Seale, the Day and Year firft 
above written. . sf 

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, ~lt 


fence of 



/ 


A Redemptioner’s Indenture 


criminals, vagrants, and kidnapped children, who were trans¬ 
ported from England by the shipload. The prevalence of 
negro slavery in the South made it difficult for indentured 
servants to find profitable and honorable employment after 
the expiration of their term of service. 

The first negroes arrived in 1619 — a fateful date in Ameri¬ 
can history — from a Dutch ship which touched at Jamestown. 
Thus began the African slave trade, which was to be carried 

1 An indenture is a contract by which an apprentice is bound to a master, or a 
servant to service in a colony. 





252 


Commerce and Colonies 


and com¬ 
merce 


on for nearly two hundred years. Slaves were brought from the 
Negro West Indies and afterwards direct from Africa. In 

slavery 3:763 they numbered about four hundred thousand, 

of whom three-fourths lived in the colonies south of Maryland. 
Slaves were least numerous in New England, not because of 
any widespread moral sentiment against keeping them, but 
simply because New England had no plantations of tobacco, 
rice, and cotton on which their labor could be profitably em¬ 
ployed. Slaves did not make good farmers or seamen. They 
were equally inefficient as traders or artisans. 

The contrasts between North and South in systems of land 
tenure and labor make it easy to understand why Maryland, 
Colonial Virginia, and the Carolinas remained chiefly 
manufactures agricultural during the colonial era, while Penn¬ 
sylvania, New York, and Massachusetts developed 
both manufactures and commerce. There were 
many household industries, including those of nails and other 

small articles of 
iron, pottery, 
wooden imple¬ 
ments, shoes, 
and coarse tex¬ 
tiles. The dis¬ 
tillation of mo¬ 
lasses into rum, 
much of which 
was sent to 
West Africa in 
exchange for 
slaves, formed 

a profitable business. Ship-building became a very important 
industry in New England. That section also had an extensive 
commerce with other colonies, the West Indies, and Europe. 
The development of manufactures in the colonies was retarded 
by lack of capital and credit, scarcity of labor, high wages, 
and the greater profits often to be gained from agriculture, 
lumbering, and the fisheries. 



New York Colonial Paper Money 




















Political Development of the Colonies 253 


58. Political Development of the Colonies 

All the colonists possessed the private rights which English¬ 
men had won during centuries of struggle against despotic 
kings. Free speech, freedom from arbitrary im- The private 
prisonment as secured by the writ of habeas corpus , rights of 
and trial by jury formed part of our legal inheri- Engllshmen 
tance from England. These and other private rights were 
embodied in the Common Law, as introduced into colonial 
America. At the time of the Revolution the Common Law 
was adopted by the several states, thus becoming the foun¬ 
dation of our own system of jurisprudence. 

The English principle of representation was also carried to 
the New World. Each colony had a representative assembly 
modeled after the House of Commons. Virginia Repre _ 
early led the way. The Puritans, who had gained sentative 
control of the London Company, permitted the assemblies 
Virginia colonists to form an assembly consisting of two depu¬ 
ties freely elected by the inhabitants of each settlement. The 
House of Burgesses, as it soon came to be called, met for the 
first time in 1619, in the chancer of the little church at James¬ 
town. A few years later (1634) the freemen of each Massa¬ 
chusetts town were allowed to send two deputies to act for them 
at the General Court of the colony. New York, which had 
been a Dutch possession, was the last of the colonies to receive 
representative self-government (1684). 

The assemblies of Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and 
the other colonies were more truly representative of the great 
body of the people than was the English Parlia- The 
ment of the period. In England a small number franchise 
of persons — nobles, country squires, and rich merchants — 
controlled elections to the House of Commons. In the colonies 
all free adult white men, who owned a moderate amount of 
property, usually had the right to vote. Religious qualifi¬ 
cations, limiting the franchise to Protestants, also existed in 
some of the colonies. 

The separation of Parliament into two houses, which had 


Commerce and Colonies 


254 


prevailed in England since the fourteenth century, accustomed 
The bi- the colonists to the bicameral system. In all 
camerai but two of the colonies the legislature consisted of 
a representative assembly, forming a lower house, 
and a small council, forming an upper house. 1 The council 
assisted the governor and had some power of amending the 
acts of the assembly. 

The governor served as the link between the colonists and 
England. In Rhode Island and Connecticut he was elected 
The by the people; in Maryland and Pennsylvania 2 

governor he was appointed by the hereditary proprietor; 

and in the other (royal) colonies he was named by the king. 

The governor might 
veto the bills passed 
‘by a colonial legis¬ 
lature. Just as quar¬ 
rels between king and 
Parliament were fre¬ 
quent in England, so 
in colonial America 

there was constant 

wrangling between 
governor and assembly, 
especially over money 
matters. The assembly 
held the purse-strings, 
however, and usually 
triumphed by refusing 
to grant supplies until the governor came to its terms. 

The unit of representation in the assemblies of the southern 
County and colonies was the county, corresponding to the 
town English shire. The county also formed a judicial 

government area< Justices of the peace, chosen from the 

more important landowners of the county, met regularly as a 



Benjamin Franklin 

After a medallion by Nini in the National Portrait 
Gallery, London. 


1 Pennsylvania and Georgia did not adopt the bicameral system until after the 
Revolution. 

2 Delaware had the same governor as Pennsylvania. 





Political Development of the Colonies 255 


court to try cases and assess taxes. The citizens of a New 
England town, or township, governed themselves directly and 
sent their own representatives to the colonial assemblies. 
In frequent town meetings they discussed all local affairs, 
made appropriations for all local expenses, and chose the town 
officials. The titles of these officials, as well as their functions, 
were often borrowed from the mother-land, showing that the 
colonists reproduced on American soil the characteristic features 
of old English local government. The middle colonies adopted 
a mixture of the New England and southern systems. Here 
both town and county were found, each with its elective officers. 
This mixed system now prevails in perhaps most of the American 
states. 

No close political ties united the colonies. The differences 
between them in industries, religion, manners, and customs 
prevented their effective cooperation. Yet prepa- Disunion of 
rations for union there had been, and signs of its the coasts 
coming. As early as 1643 Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
Haven (then a separate colony), 
and Plymouth entered into a 
league “for mutual help and 
strength in all our future concern¬ 
ments.” This league, known as 
the United Colonies of New 
England, held together for forty 
years. Delegates from seven 
colonies met in the Albany 
Congress of 1754 and discussed 
Benjamin Franklin’s plan for 
forming a defensive union of 
all the colonies. The plan fell 
through, but it set men to thinking about the advantages of 
federation. After the close of the “French and Indian War” 
the colonists, who had learned the value of concerted action 
against a common foe, began to unite in defense of their rights 
against king and Parliament. 



A device printed in Franklin’s news¬ 
paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, shows 
a wriggling rattlesnake cut into pieces, 
with the initial letter of a colony on 
each piece. 









Commerce and Colonies 


256 


59. Canada and Louisiana 

The French at the opening of the seventeenth century had 
gained no foothold in the New World. For more than fifty 
Lateness of y ears after the failure of Jacques Cartier’s settle- 
French ment (1542), they were so occupied with the 

colonization Huguenot wars that they gave little thought to 
colonial expansion. The single exception was the ill-starred 
colony which Admiral de Coligny attempted to establish in 
Florida (1564). The Spaniards quickly destroyed it, not only 
because the settlers were Protestants, but also because a French 
settlement in Florida directly threatened their West Indian 
possessions. The growing weakness of Spain, together with 
the cessation of the religious struggle, made possible a renewal 
of the colonizing movement. The French again turned to the 
north, attracted by the fur trade and the fisheries, and founded 
Canada during the same decade that the English were founding 
Virginia. 

The first great name in Canadian history is that of Samuel 
de Champlain, who enjoyed the patronage of Henry IV. Cham- 
Champiain plain explored the coast of Maine and Massa- 
and Canada chusetts as far south as Plymouth, discovered the 
beautiful lake now called after him, traced the course of the 
St. Lawrence River, and also came upon lakes Ontario and 
Huron. He set up a permanent French post at Quebec in 
1608 and three years later founded Montreal. Champlain 
served as the first governor of Canada. 

The seventeenth century was an era of missionary zeal in 
the Roman Catholic Church, and Canada became the favorite 
j esuit mission field. Champlain brought in the Francis- 

missions in cans, who were followed in greater numbers by the 
Jesuits. The story of the Jesuits in North America 
is an inspiring record of self-sacrifice and devotion. Many 
of them suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Indians. The 
journeys made by the Jesuits in the wilderness of the North¬ 
west added much to geographical knowledge, while their mission 
stations often grew into flourishing towns. After Cardinal 



Lake 

Superior 

1016 


ST.ESPRIT 
J 1665 


MONTREAL 


INAC ° 

I Lake ^ 

hluron . 

/ N lChV 


ST.XAVIER S 
(1669 


FT.LAb'-PEPIN 

vs::.';1727'. 


IFT.FRQNTENAC4 

1 673. rj ' 

fL. OntarioJ ■> 
2 ^'iovC^ 


DETROIT; 

.,,1.701 


sFT.St 4.0U IS o> 

00682 ; f 


.* CAHOKIA 
S.-.1698, 


Iro‘ 1 * 


kaskaskia' 

:4ii 700 ) 


F LASALLE/9 FT 
*'• 1682 ~- 
[ft.prudhonTmi 


( if l \ 

.o)fT./T0UL0USI 

° 1714 \ 


FT. T O'MB E C K B E i 

wmm 

'/ft ROSALIE \ 

♦ . • 1714 . • Y 


NATCHITOCHES 
v i : 717S H 


’E_n|aCOLA 


IW ORLEANS 

>vJ 718 


ST.LOUIS 


+ +Tloute of LaSalle's 
great voyage of 
i discovery. 


hjij^efthmentXy 


Canada and .Louisiana 257 

Richelieu had forbidden the Protestants to settle in Canada, the 
Jesuit influence became dominant there. It has not yet entirely 
disappeared, in spite of a century and a half of English rule. 


When Colbert, the able minister of Louis XIV, came to power, 
the exploration of Canada went on with re- La Salle 
newed energy. The French, hitherto, had been and 
spurred by the hope of finding in the Great Lakes Louisiana 
a western passage to Cathay. Joliet, the fur trader, and Mar- 


La Salle’s Explorations 






Commerce, and Colonies 


258 

quette, the Jesuit missionary, believed that they had actually 
found the highway uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific when 
their birchbark canoes first glided into the upper Mississippi. 
It was reserved for the most illustrious of French explorers, 
Robert de La Salle, to discover the true character of the “Father 
of Waters” and to perform the feat of descending it to the sea 
(1682). He took possession of all the territory drained by the 
Mississippi for Louis XIV, naming it Louisiana. 

Where La Salle had shown the way, missionaries, fur traders, 
hunters, and adventurers quickly followed. The French 

New France now ^ e S an to rea ^ ze the importance of the Missis¬ 
sippi Valley, which time was to prove the most 
extensive fertile area in the world. Efforts were made to occupy 
it and to connect it with Canada by a chain of forts reaching 
from Quebec and Montreal on the St. Lawrence to New Or¬ 
leans 1 at the mouth of the Mississippi. All of the continent 
west of the Alleghenies was to become New France. 

However audacious this design, it seemed not impossible 
of fulfillment. New France, a single royal province under one 
Strength and military governor, offered a united front to the 
weakness of divided English colonies. The population, though 
New France sma p compared with the number of the English 
colonists, consisted mostly of men of military age, good fighters, 
and aided by numerous Indian allies. Lack of home support 
largely offset these real advantages. While the French were 
contending for colonial supremacy, they were constantly at 
war in Europe. They wasted on European battle-fields the 
resources which might otherwise have been expended in America. 
Furthermore, the despotism of Louis XIV and Louis XV 
hampered private enterprise in New France by vexatious re¬ 
strictions on trade and industry and at the same time deprived 
the inhabitants of training in self-government. The French 
settlers never breathed the air of liberty, while the English 
colonists in political matters were left almost entirely to them¬ 
selves. The failure of France to become a world-power at this 

1 Founded in 17x8 and named after the Due d’Orleans, who was regent of 
France during the minority of Louis XV. See page 189, note 1. 


Rivalry of France and England 


time must be ascribed, therefore, to the unfortunate policies of 
her rulers. 



North America after the Peace of Utrecht, 1713 a.d. 


60. Rivalry of France and England in North 
America (to 1763) 

The struggle between France and England began, both in 
the Old World and the New, in 1689, when the “ Glorious Revo¬ 
lution” drove out James II and placed William A new 

of Orange on the English throne as William III. Hundred 

0 * Years’ War 

The Dutch and English, who had previously 

been enemies, now became friends and united in resistance to 

Louis XIV. The French king not only threatened the Dutch, 

but also incensed the English by receiving the fugitive James 











































26 o 


Commerce and Colonies 



and aiding him to win back his crown. England at once joined 
a coalition of the states of Europe against France. This 
was the beginning of a new Hundred Years’ War between the 
two countries. 1 The struggle extended beyond the Continent, 

for each of the rivals tried to 
destroy the commerce and annex 
the colonies of the other. 

The 'first period of conflict 
closed in 1713, with the Peace 

Provisions of of Utrecht, which 
the Peace of was as important 
Utrecht, 1713 ^ ^ higtory of 

colonial America as in the his¬ 
tory of Europe. England se¬ 
cured Newfoundland, Acadia 
(rechristened Nova Scotia), and 
the extensive region drained by 
the rivers flowing into Hudson 
Bay. France, however, kept the 
best part of her American 
territories and retained control 
of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. The possession of 
these two waterways gave her a strong strategic position in the 
interior of the continent. 

The two great European wars which came between 1740 and 
1763 were naturally reflected in the New World. The War of 
the Austrian Succession, known in American 
history as “King George’s War,” proved to be 
indecisive. The Seven Years’ War, similarly 
known as the “French and Indian War,” resulted 
in the expulsion of the French from North America. 
France had no resources to cope with those of England in 
America, and the English command of the sea proved decisive. 

1 War of the League of Augsburg, 1689-1697 (“King William’s War”). 

War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-1713 (“Queen Anne’s War”). 

War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748 (“King George’s War”). 

Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763 (“French and Indian War”). 

War of the American Revolution, 1776-1783. 


Montcalm 

After the portrait in possession of 
the present Marquis of Montcalm, 
Chateau d’Aveze, France. 


“King 
George’s 
War” and 
the “ French 
and Indian 
War ” 



Rivalry of France and England '261 

One French post after another was captured: Louisburg, on 
Cape Breton Island, commanding the Gulf of St. Lawrence; 



Fort Duquesne, at the junction of the Allegheny and Ohio 
rivers; Fort Niagara, which guarded the route between Lake 
Ontario and Lake Erie; and Fort Ticonderoga between Lake 






































262 


Commerce and Colonies 


Provisions 
of the 
Peace of 
Paris, 1763 


George and Lake Champlain. In 1759 Wolfe defeated the 
gallant Montcalm under the walls of Quebec, and the fall of 
that stronghold quickly followed. A year later what remained 
of the French army surrendered at Montreal. The British flag 
was now raised over Canada, where it has flown ever since. 1 

The second period of conflict closed in 1763, with the Peace 
of Paris. France ceded to England all her North American 
possessions east of the Mississippi, except two 
small islands kept for fishing purposes off the coast 
'of Newfoundland. Spain, which had also been 
involved in the war, gave up Florida to England, 
receiving as compensation the French territories west of the 

Mississippi. New France was 
now only a memory. But 
modern Canada has two millions 
of Frenchmen, who still hold 
aloof from the British in lan¬ 
guage and religion, while Loui¬ 
siana, though shrunk to the 
dimensions of an American 
state, still retains in its laws 
and in many customs of its 
people the French tradition. 

The Peace of Paris marked 

England and a turnin S P oint in 
the Thirteen the history of the 
Colonies Thirteen Colonies. 
Relieved of pressure from with¬ 
out and free to expand toward the west and south, they now 
felt less keenly their dependence on England. Close ties, the 
ties of common interests, common ideals, and a common origin, 
still attached them to the mother country; but these were 
soon to be rudely severed during the period of disturbance, 
disorder, and violence which culminated in the American 
Revolution. 



James Wolfe 

After the portrait by Schaak in the 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 


1 Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans and Sir Gilbert Parker’s The Seats 
of the Mighty are works of fiction dealing with this period. 


The American Revplution 


263 


61. The American Revolution, 1776-1783 

Englishmen in the New World for a long time had been 
drawing apart from Englishmen in the Old World. The politi¬ 
cal training received by the colonists in their local p reparation 
meetings and provincial assembhes fitted them for for inde- 
self-government, while the hard conditions of life P endence 
in America fostered their energy, self-reliance, and impatience 
of restraint. The important part which they played in the 


Quebec 

From an old engraving. 

conquest of Canada gave them confidence in their military 
abilities and showed them the value of cooperation. Renewed 
interference of Great Britain in what they deemed their private 
concerns before long called forth their united resistance. 

Some of the grievances of which the colonists complained 
were the outcome of the British colonial policy. The home 
government discouraged the manufacture in the Restrictions 
colonies of goods that could be made in England, on colonial 
Parliament, for instance, prohibited the export manufactures 
of woolens, not only to the British Isles and the Continent, 
but also from one colony to another, and forbade the colonists 
to set up mills for making wrought iron or its finished products. 





264 


Commerce and Colonies 


Such regulations aimed to give British manufacturers a monop¬ 
oly of the colonial markets. 

The home government also interfered with the commerce of 
the colonies. As early as 1660 Parliament passed a “Navi- 
Restrictions gation Act” providing that sugar, tobacco, cotton, 
on colonial and indigo might not be exported direct from the 
colonies to foreign countries, but must be first 
brought to England, where duties were paid on them. A sub¬ 
sequent act required all ^imports to the colonies from Conti¬ 
nental Europe to have been actually shipped from an English 
port, thus compelling the colonists to go to England for their 
supplies. These acts, however, were so poorly enforced for 
many years that smuggling became a lucrative occupation. 

All this legislation was not so repressive as one would suppose, 
partly because it was so constantly evaded and partly because 
Alleviations Great Britain formed the natural market for most 
and com- colonial products. Moreover, the home govern- 
pensations men t gave some special favors in the shape of 
“bounties,” or sums of money to encourage the production of 
food and raw materials needed in Great Britain. Twenty- 
four colonial industries were subsidized in this manner. Colo¬ 
nial shipping was also fostered, for ships built in the colonies 
enjoyed the same exclusive privileges in the carrying trade as 
British-built ships. In fact, the regulations which the American 
colonists had to endure were light, compared with the shackles 
laid by Spain and France upon their colonial possessions. It 
must always be remembered, finally, that Great Britain de¬ 
fended the colonists in return for trade privileges. As long 
as her help was needed against the French, they did not protest 
seriously against the legislation of Parliament. 

After the close of the Seven Years’ War George III and his 
ministers determined to keep British troops in America as a 
The Stamp protection against outbreaks by the French or 

Act and Indians. The colonists, to whose safety an army 

would add, were expected to pay for its partial 
support. Parliament, accordingly, took steps to 
enforce the laws regulating colonial commerce and also passed 


the Town- 
shend Acts 


The American Revolution 


265 


the Stamp Act (1765). The protests of the colonists led to the 
repeal of this obnoxious measure, but it was soon replaced by 
the Townshend Acts (1767), levying duties on certain commodi¬ 
ties imported into America. These acts, in turn, were repealed 
three years later. Parliament, however, kept a small duty on 
tea, in order that the colonists might not think that it had 
abandoned its assumed right to tax them. 

The Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts thus brought up 
the whole question as to the extent of parliamentary control 
over the colonists. They argued that taxes could ^ 
be rightfully voted only by their own representative ation with- 
assemblies. It was a natural attitude for them out repre ~ 

, . _ .. . . . . , sentation” 

to take, smce Parliament, sitting three thousand 
miles away, had little insight into American affairs. The 
English view was that Parliament “vir¬ 
tually” represented all Englishmen and 
hence might tax them wherever they lived. 

This view can also be understood, for the 
“Glorious Revolution” had definitely es¬ 
tablished the supremacy of Parliament in 
England. 1 In any case, however, taxation 
of the colonies was clearly contrary to 
custom and very impolitic in the face of 
the popular feeling which it aroused in 
America. 

Some British statesmen themselves espoused the cause of the 
colonists. Edmund Burke, the great Irish orator, declared 
that the idea of a virtual representation of America ^ ttitu d e 
in Parliament was “the most contemptible idea of British 
that ever entered the head of a man.” Even 
William Pitt (then earl of Chatham), while maintaining the 
right of Parliament to legislate for America, applauded the 
“manly wisdom and calm resolution” displayed by the colo¬ 
nists. But these were the voices of a minority, of a helpless 
minority. Parliament was then under the thumb of George 
III and the “king’s friends.” 2 

1 See page 172. 



A Stamp of 1765 


2 See pages 224-225. 


266 


Commerce and Colonies 


The colonists were so opposed to the principle of parliamen¬ 
tary taxation that they refused to buy tea from British 
_ . .. merchants and in Boston even boarded a tea 

Declaration . -nr 

of indepen- ship and threw the cargo into the water, rariia- 
dence, 1776 ment replie(i to the 4 ‘Boston Tea Party” by closing 
the harbor of that city to commerce and by depriving Mas¬ 
sachusetts of self-government. These measures, instead of 
bringing the recalcitrant colony to terms, only aroused the 

M. 'Jt Lcr wuj 



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XKsj-rvrr **'rCO A^Krry AtsrZirtsr^ y>t rvut&rl ^r-rm 

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Lc&rrnAS JUj\r**ZluA.' /j i/t ^ fXrOjr^L. "6 *JU*r) 

Opening Lines oe the Declaration oe Independence 

A reduced facsimile of the first lines of Jefferson’s original draft. 


apprehension of her neighbors and led to the meeting of 
delegates from all the colonies, except Georgia, in the First 
Continental Congress ( 1774 ). It recommended a policy of non¬ 
intercourse with Great Britain until the colonists had recovered 
their “just rights and liberties.” The Second Congress ( 1775 ), 
which met after blood had been shed at Lexington and Concord, 
prepared for war and appointed George Washington to com¬ 
mand the colonial forces. On July 4 , 1776 , after the failure of 
all plans for conciliation with the mother country, it declared 
that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent states.” 








The American Revolution 


267 


No colony at first contained a large majority in favor of 
separation, and even after the Declaration of Independence 
numerous loyalists, or “Tories,” continued to The 
espouse the British cause. Some of them even “ tories ” 
fought against their native land, while others did everything 
they could to prevent the success of the Revolution by sowing 
sedition, spreading false news, concealing spies, and selling 
goods to the enemy. It was necessary to adopt the sternest 
measures in deal¬ 
ing with men 
whom Washing¬ 
ton called “exe¬ 
crable parri¬ 
cides,” and many 
were imprisoned 
or confined in 
concentration 
camps. After 
the conclusion 
of peace the 
“Tories” emi¬ 
grated in great 
numbers to Can¬ 
ada, where they 
were the first 
English settlers. 

They prospered 
in their new 
home, and their 
descendants, who 
population, are to-day among the most devoted members of 
the British Empire. 

Even had the colonists been unanimous in resistance to 
Great Britain, they stood little chance of win- The French 
ning against a wealthy country with a popu- alliance, 
lation nearly three times their own, trained 
armies supported by German mercenaries, and a powerful navy. 



The “Liberty Bell” 


Now in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Contrary to popular 
belief, the “Liberty Bell” was not rung until July 8, 1776, when 
the Declaration of Independence was read in the State House 
yard to the assembled soldiers and citizens. 

form a considerable part of the Canadian 















268 


Commerce and Colonies 



When, however, the resources of France were thrown into the 
scale, the issue became less doubtful. France, still smarting from 
the losses incurred in the Seven Years’ War, desired to recover 
as much as possible of her colonial dominion and secretly 
aided the Americans with money and supplies for some time 























































The American Revolution 


269 


before the victory at Saratoga led her to enter into a formal 
alliance with them. It must never be forgotten, also, that 
many Frenchmen felt a genuine sympathy for the colonists in 
their struggle for liberty. The Marquis de Lafayette was only 
the most illustrious of the French nobles who crossed the 
Atlantic to fight side by side with American soldiers. 

The war now merged into a European conflict, in which 
France was joined by Spain and Holland. Great Britain 
needed all her reserve power to prevent rebellion cioge 
in Ireland, defend Gibraltar, and keep her pos- the Revo- 
sessions in the West Indies and India. The Jy tionar y 

War 

struggle in America practically closed in 1781, when 
Cornwallis, blockaded at York town by a French fleet and 

r //zdezS, j 

Jd/zn Jm/— 



Signatures of the Treaty of Paris, 1783 

From the original document in the Department of State, Washington. 

closely invested by the combined French and American armies, 
surrendered the largest British force still in the colonies. Nearly 
two years passed, however, before the contestants made peace. 

The Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the United 
States recognized the independence of the former Thirteen 
Colonies and fixed their boundaries at Canada Treaties of 
and the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Ocean, Florida, Paris and 
and the Mississippi River. The Treaty of Ver- Versailles, 
sailles between Great Britain, France, and Spain 
restored to France a few colonial possessions and gave to Spain 





270 


Commerce and Colonies 


American 

independence 


the island of Minorca 1 and the Florida territory. 2 Holland, 
which concluded a separate peace with Great Britain, was 
obliged to cede to that country some stations in India and to 
throw open to British merchants the valuable trade of the 
East Indies. 

The successful revolt of the Thirteen Colonies dealt a stagger¬ 
ing blow at the old colonial policy. The Americans con- 
Effects of tinued to trade with the mother country from 
self-interest, although they were no longer com¬ 
pelled to do so by law. The result was that 
British commerce with the United States doubled within fifteen 
years after the close of the Revolutionary War. This formed 
an object-lesson in the futility of commercial restrictions. 

The American War of Independence reacted almost at 
once on Europe. The Declaration of Independence, setting 
America forth the “unalienable rights of man” as against 
teaching feudal privilege and oppression, provided ardent 
by example spirits in France with a formula of liberty which 
they were not slow in applying to their own country. The 
French Revolution of 1789 was the child of the American 
Revolution. Early in the nineteenth century still another 
revolutionary movement stripped Spain and Portugal of all 
their continental possessions in the New World. America 
was, indeed, teaching by example. 


62. Formation of the United States 

The Continental Congress, which had framed the Decla¬ 
ration of Independence in 1776, continued to govern the United 
Articles of States until the adoption of the Articles of Con- 

Confedera- federation in 1781. This constitution established 
lon ’ a mere league of states, like the United Colonies 

of New England in the seventeenth century 3 and the still 
earlier Dutch and Swiss confederations. The authority of 
Congress under the Articles was practically limited to war, 

1 See page 187. 

3 See page 255. 


2 See page 262. 


Formation of the United States 


271 


peace, and foreign affairs. It could not levy taxes, could not 
regulate interstate commerce, and had no power to enforce 
obedience in either a state or an individual. Every attempt 
to amend the Articles by legislative action failed, and the 
weak and clumsy government which they had set up threatened 
to collapse. 

Such were the distressing circumstances under which the 
Federal Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787. To this 
body the states sent fifty-five delegates, including The Federal 
Washington, who presided, Franklin, James Madi- Convention, 
son, and Alexander Hamilton. Instead of merely 1787 
amending the Articles, they decided to prepare an entirely 
new constitution, and accomplished the task within four months. 

Necessary though the Constitution was, if the American 
people were not to face anarchy and civil war, it satisfied 

neither the advocates of states’ rights nor the xs _ . 

® Ratification 

extreme democrats. Nearly a year elapsed before 0 f the 
eleven states ratified the instrument. North 
Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify it until 
after the inauguration of Washington as President in 1789. 

The concessions made to the opponents of the Constitution, 
as originally framed, were embodied in the first ten amend¬ 
ments. These provided for religious freedom, the The first ten 
separation of Church and State, free speech, a amendments, 
free press, the privileges of assembly and petition, 
the right to bear arms, speedy and public jury trials, and other 
safeguards of personal liberty. In short, the amendments 
were a Bill of Rights 1 for the American people. 

The Constitution, in many features, reflects the political 
experience of the colonists and their familiarity with British 
methods of government. Accustomed to a bi- sources of 
cameral legislature, they retained this arrange- the Consti- 
ment in the Senate and House of Representatives, 
but made the upper, as well as the lower house elective. The 
President’s powers of military command, appointment, and 
veto resembled those of the colonial governor, though here, 

1 See pages 171-172. 


272 


Commerce and Colonies 


again, the framers of the Constitution departed from precedent 
in making the executive elective. The national courts were 
modeled after those of the colonies. The Supreme Court, 
with its power of declaring acts of Congress unconstitutional, 
found a prototype in the Privy Council of Great Britain, which 
had formerly exercised the right of annulling acts of the colonial 
legislatures. It is noteworthy, however, that the Constitution 
contains no provision for the cabinet system, something un¬ 
known to the colonists and at this time not fully developed in 
Great Britain. 1 

As a whole, the Constitution formed a novelty in politics. 

It established, for the first time in history, a federal union, 

The nation rather than a mere league of states or confeder- 

and the ation. The objects of the new government 

st&tcs ^ 

were concisely stated in the immortal preamble: 

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro¬ 
vide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States.” 

63. Progress of Geographical Discovery 

Great Britain soon found at least partial compensation for 
the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in the occupation of Australia 
Early ex- anc ^ the islands of the Pacific. That vast ocean, 

the r padfic f C0verin s more than one-third of the globe, re¬ 

mained little known to Europeans until the latter 
part of the eighteenth century. Soon after Magellan’s voyage 
in 1520, the Spaniards established a regular commercial route 
between Mexico and the Philippines and gradually discovered 
some of the innumerable archipelagoes which stud the inter¬ 
vening seas. Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the 
world (1577-1580) first drew the attention of Englishmen 
to the Pacific Ocean, but a long time passed before they began 
its systematic exploration. 

The unveiling of the Pacific was closely connected with the 

1 See page 221. 




















































' *> - 


































































* 

. 







' 


- 













































































































































































































j 

































• . 




























































Progress of Geographical Discovery 273 


Antarctic problem. Geographers from the time of the Greeks 
had a vague idea that a region of continental pro- The ,, Great 
portions lay to the southeast of the Indian Ocean. South 
The idea found expression in Ptolemy’s map of the Land 
world, and Marco Polo during his stay in China heard about it. 
After the Dutch became established in the East Indies, they 
made renewed search for the “Great South Land” and carefully 
explored the western coast of Australia or “New Holland.” 

In 1642 the Dutch East India Company sent Abel Tasman 
from Batavia to investigate the real extent of Australia. Tas¬ 
man’s two voyages — among the most notable on Tasman » s 
record — led to the discovery of Van Diemen’s voyages, 1642- 
Land (Tasmania) and New Zealand, and proved 43,1644 
conclusively that Australia had no connection with the sup¬ 
posed Antarctic 
continent. The 
Dutch, however, 
manifested little 
interest in the 
regions which 
they had found, 
and more than 
one hundred 
years elapsed be¬ 
fore Tasman’s 
work was con¬ 
tinued by Cap¬ 
tain James Cook. 

This famous 

navigator, the son of a farm laborer, entered the British navy 
at an early age and by his unaided efforts rose to Cook , s 
high command. Cook’s first voyage in the Pacific voyages in 
resulted in the exploration of the coast of New tke^Pactfic 
Zealand and the eastern shore of Australia. The 
second voyage finally settled the question as to the existence 
of a southern continent, for Cook sailed three times across 
the Pacific Ocean without finding it. At the instance of 



The “Discovery” 

Captain Cook’s ship in his last voyage. When this drawing 
was made, she was being used as a coaling-vessel at Newcastle; 
hence the addition of steam funnels. 







274 


Commerce and Colonies 


Bering’s 

voyages, 

1728-1729, 

1741 


George III, Cook undertook a third voyage to locate, if 
possible, an opening on the coast of Alaska which would lead 
into Hudson Bay. He followed the American coast through 
Bering Strait until an unbroken ice field barred further progress. 
On the return from the Arctic region Cook visited the Hawaiian 
Islands, where he was murdered by the natives. Thus closed 
the career of one who, more than any other explorer, revealed 
to European gaze the island world of the Pacific. 

Captain Cook on his third voyage was the first British navi¬ 
gator to sight Alaska. Here, however, he had been preceded 
by the Russians, who reached the Pacific by way 
of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. It still remained 
uncertain whether Siberia did not join on to the 
northern part of the New World. Peter the 
Great, who showed a keen interest in geographical discovery, 
commissioned Vitus Bering, a Dane in the Russian service, 
to solve the problem. Bering explored the strait and sea 
named after him and made clear the relation between North 
America and Asia. 

The eighteenth century thus added greatly to man’s knowl¬ 
edge of the world, especially in the Pacific area. Cook’s voy- 
Scientific ages, hi particular, left the main outlines of the 

exploration southern part of the globe substantially as they 
are known to-day. From this time systematic exploration 
for scientific purposes more and more took the place of voyages 
by private adventurers for the sake of warfare or plunder. 
Geographical discovery must be included, therefore, among the 
influences which made the eighteenth century so conspicuously 
an age of enlightenment. 

Studies 


i. On outline maps represent the division of North America {a) after the Peace 
of Utrecht and ( b) after the Peace of Paris. 2. Locate these places: Calcutta; 
Batavia; Sydney; Madras; Sitka; Bombay; and Pondicherry. 3. Identify these 
dates in American colonial history: 1607; 1620; 1664; 1713; and 1763. 4. Ac¬ 
cording to the mercantile theory, what constituted a “favorable” and what an 
“unfavorable” balance of trade? 5. How was the colonial policy based on mer¬ 
cantilism opposed to modem ideas of commercial freedom? 6. What was meant 
by the saying that colonies were “like so many farms of the mother country”? 
7. Why was the joint-stock company a more successful method of fostering colonial 


Progress of Geographical Discovery 275 

trade than the regulated company? 8. Show that the seventeenth century belonged 
commercially to the Dutch, as the sixteenth century had belonged to the Portuguese 
and Spaniards. 9. On the map (page 229) indicate what East Indian islands still 
remain Dutch possessions. 10. Why was it possible for European powers to secure 
dominions in India? n. State the basis of the claims of England, France, Spain, 
Holland, and Sweden to territory in North America during the seventeenth century. 
12. “The breaking of Spain’s naval power is an incident of the first importance in 
the history of the English colonies.” Comment on this statement. 13. “To Vir¬ 
ginia men went for profit; principle drove them to New England.” Comment on 
this statement. 14. Why was the acquisition of New Netherland an important 
step in the building up of colonial America? 15. Show how the Stuart kings fostered 
England’s expansion in North America. 16. “The expansion of England in the 
New World and in Asia is the formula which sums up for England the history of the 
eighteenth century.” Comment on this statement. 17. Set forth the importance 
of the Seven Years’ War in the history of India and of colonial America. 18. Show 
that “no taxation without representation” was a slogan which could hardly have 
arisen in any but an English country. 19. “The Declaration of Independence was 
the formal announcement of democratic ideas that had their tap-root in English 
soil.” Comment on this statement. 20. How did the American Revolution 
become a world war? 21. In what sense was the American Revolution “a civil 
war within the British Empire”? 22. Show that the American Constitution 
established, not a confederation, but a federal state. 23. From what Dutch source 
were the names Tasmania, Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand derived? 
24. Trace on the map (between pages 272-273) the three voyages of Captain Cook. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 
64. Reform 

The student will recall the more significant transformations 
of European society which closed the Middle Ages and ushered 
The eight ^ mo< ^ ern ti mes - The Renaissance of literature, 
eenth art, and learning; geographical discovery, explo- 

century in ration, and colonization; and the Protestant 
Reformation and Catholic Counter Reformation 
all helped to complete the transition from the medieval to the 
modern world. To these three movements we may now add the 
extraordinary awakening of the European mind in the eight¬ 
eenth century. It was an age of reason, an age of enlighten¬ 
ment 

The thinkers of the eighteenth century pursued knowledge 
not so much for its own sake as for its social usefulness. They 
The reform- felt that the time had come when mankind might 
mg spirit well discard many ideas and customs, once serv¬ 
iceable, perhaps, but now outworn. To them the chief obstacle 
in the way of progress was found in human ignorance, prejudice, 
and unreasoning veneration for the past. Systematic and ac¬ 
curate knowledge, they believed, would destroy this attachment 
to “the good old days” and would make it possible to create 
more reasonable and enlightened institutions. In other words, 
thinkers were animated by the reforming spirit. 

Reform was sorely needed. Absolute monarchies claiming 
to rule by divine right, aristocracies in the possession of privi- 
The Old leges and honors, the masses of the people excluded 
Regime f rom an y p ar t j n the government and burdened 
with taxes and feudal dues — such were some of the survivals 

276 


The Privileged Classes 


277 


of medievalism \ diich formed the Old Regime . 1 The eighteenth 
century abolished' it in France: the nineteenth and twentieth 
centuries have done much to abolish it in other European 
countries. Let us examine it more closely. 

65 . The Privileged Classes 

Where absolutism prevailed, everything depended upon the 
personal character of the sovereign. A Peter the Great might 
set his country upon the road to civilization; a The 
Louis XIV, on the contrary, might plunge his monarchy 
people into indescribable misery *as the result of needless wars 
and extravagant expenditures. As time went on, it began to 
appear more and more unreasonable that a single person should 
have the power to make the laws, levy the taxes, spend the 
revenues, declare war, and conclude peace according to his 
own inclination. England in the seventeenth century had 
shown that a divine-right monarchy might be replaced by a 
constitutional monarchy and parliamentary control of legis¬ 
lation. The reformers wished to secure for France and other 
Continental countries at least an equal measure of political 
liberty. 

Not less insistent was their demand for social equality. 
The feudal system had bequeathed as part of its heritage to 
modern Europe a system of class distinctions which The First 
honeycombed society. The highest -place was and Second 
occupied by the clergy and nobility, who con¬ 
stituted the First and Second Estates, respectively. These 
two privileged classes formed a very small minority of the 
population in any European country. Of twenty-five million 
Frenchmen, for instance, less than half a million were clerics 
or nobles. 

Reverence felt by kings and lords for mother Church had 
dowered her representatives with rich and broad The 
domains. In France, Spain, Italy, and those 
parts of Germany where Church property had not been con¬ 
fiscated by Protestants, the. archbishops, bishops, abbots, 

1 In French, ancien regime. 


278 


The Old Regime in Europe 

and cardinals ruled as veritable princes and /paid few or no 
taxes to the government. These members of the higher clergy 
were recruited mainly from the noble families and naturally 
took the side of the absolute monarchs. The lower clergy, 
the thousands of parish priests, who came from the common 
people, just as naturally espoused the popular cause. They 
saw the abuses of the existing system and supported the de¬ 
mands for its reform. 

By the eighteenth century the old feudal nobility had largely 
disappeared from Europe, except in Germany. A new aristoc- 
The racy arose, consisting of those who had been 

nobility ennobled by the king for various services or who 

had held certain offices which conferred noble rank. The 
nobles, like the higher clergy, were great landed proprietors, 
though without the military obligations which rested on feudal 
lords during the Middle Ages. 

Great Britain is almost the only modern state where the 
nobility still keeps an important place in the national life. 
English There are several reasons for this fact. In the 

nobles first pi ace> British nobles are few in number in 

consequence of the rule of primogeniture. Only the eldest 
son of a peer inherits his father’s title and estate; the younger 
sons are commoners. Even the eldest son during his father’s 
lifetime is styled “Lord” simply by courtesy. In the second 
place, the social distinction of the nobility arouses little antago¬ 
nism, because a peer is not bound to marry into another noble 
family but may take his* wife from the ranks of commoners. 
In the third place, the nobility is from time to time enlarged 
through the creation of new peers, very often men who have 
distinguished themselves by their public services as generals or 
statesmen-or by their contributions to science, art, or letters. 
During the eighteenth century, for instance, 34 dukes, 29 
marquises, 109 earls, 85 viscounts, and 248 barons were created. 
This constant supply of new blood has helped to preserve the 
British aristocracy from stagnation and incompetence. Finally, 
nobles in Great Britain are taxed as are other citizens and are 
equally amenable to the laws. 


The Privileged Classes 279 

Very different was the situation in eighteenth-century France. 
Here there were as many as one hundred thousand nobles, for 
the French did not observe the rule of primogeni- French 
ture. Their “gentle birth” enabled them to nobles 
monopolize the important offices in the government, the army, 
and the Church. They claimed, and largely secured, exemption 
from taxation. The 
result was that most 
of the expense of 
the wars, the mag¬ 
nificent palaces, and 
gorgeous ceremonial 
of Louis XIV and 
Louis XV was borne 
by the middle and 
lower classes of 
France. The pro¬ 
vincial nobles, who 
lived on their country 
estates, usually took 
more or less part in 
local affairs and felt 
an interest in the wel¬ 
fare of the peasantry. 

But many members 
of the nobility were 

absentee landlords, “ Ridiculous Taste, or the Ladies’ 
leading a fashion- Absurdity ” 

able existence at the One of the many caricatures of the extravagant 

, ■, . fashions in headdress of both sexes during the eight- 

court and dancing eenth century. 

attendance on the 

king. Nobles of this type were ornamental rather than use¬ 
ful. Their luxury and idleness made them objects of odium 
in the minds of all who wished to renovate society. As one 
reformer declared, “Through all the vocabulary of Adam, 
there is not such an animal as a duke or a count.” 





































28 o 


The Old Regime in Europe 


66. The Unprivileged Classes 

Such were the two privileged orders, or estates. Beneath 
The Third them came the unprivileged order known as the 
Estate Third Estate in France. It consisted of three 

main divisions. 

The middle class, or bourgeoisie / included all those who 
were not manual laborers. Professional men, such as magis- 
The trates, .lawyers, physicians, and teachers, together 

bourgeoisie with bankers, manufacturers, wholesale merchants, 
and shopkeepers, were bourgeois. The British middle class 
enjoyed representation in Parliament and frequently entered 
the nobility. The French bourgeoisie , on the contrary, could 
not hold the positions of greatest honor in the government. 
Though well educated and often wealthy, they were made to 
feel in every way their inferiority to the arrogant nobles. They 
added their voices, therefore, to those who demanded political 
liberty and social equality. 

The next division of the Third Estate comprised the artisans 
living in the towns and cities. They were not very numerous, 
The except in Great Britain, France, western Germany, 

artisans a nd northern Italy, where industrial life had 

reached a much higher development than elsewhere in Europe. 

The craft guilds, so characteristic of urban life during the 
Middle Ages, had begun to disappear from eighteenth-century 
Survivals of England, but still maintained their importance 
the guild on the Continent. Each trade had its own guild, 
controlling methods of manufacture, quantity and 
quality of the article produced, wages and hours of labor, and 
number of workmen to be employed. In many places, the 
masters, who owned the shops, machines, or tools, alone be¬ 
longed to the guilds. Even where journeymen and apprentices 
became members, after paying excessive entrance fees, they were 
not admitted to all the privileges of the craft. This exclusive 
policy of the masters provoked much opposition on the part of 

1 From French bourg, “town.” 


The Unprivileged Classes 281 

the poorer workmen 1 and led to a demand for the abolition of 
their monopoly of industry. 

The last and by far the largest division of the Third Estate 
was that of the peasants. In Prussia, Austria, Hungary, 
Poland, Russia, and Spain they were still serfs. The 
They might not leave their villages or marry with- P easants 
out their lord’s consent; their children must serve in his family 
for several years at a nominal wage; and they themselves had 
to work for a number of days each week on their lord’s land. 
It is said that this forced labor sometimes took so much of the 
peasant’s time that he could only cultivate his own holding by 
moonlight. Conditions were better in Italy and western Ger¬ 
many, though it was a Hessian prince who sold his subjects to 
Great Britain to fight as mercenaries in the American War of 
Independence. In France, serfdom still existed only in Alsace, 
Lorraine, and Franche Comte , 2 three provinces which had been 
acquired by Louis XIV and Louis XV. The great majority 
of the French peasants enjoyed complete freedom, and many 
of them owned their own farms. 

But even the free peasants of France carried a heavy burden. 
The king imposed the hated land tax (tattle), assessing a certain 
amount on each village and requiring the money survivals of 
to be paid whether the inhabitants could afford the manorial 
it or not. Still more hated was the corvee, or system 
forced labor exacted by the government from time to time 
on roads and other public works. The clergy demanded tithes, 
which amounted to perhaps a thirteenth of the produce. The 
nobles levied various feudal dues for the use of oven, mill, 
and wine press, and tolls for the use of roads and bridges. 
The game laws were especially vexatious, because farmers were 
obliged to allow the game of neighboring lords to invade their 
fields and destroy the crops. Slight wonder that the peasants 
also formed a discontented class, anxious for any reforms which 
would better their hard lot. 

1 The so-called urban proletariat (from Latin proles, “offspring,” “progeny” — 
referring to those whose only wealth is in their children). 

2 See the map on page 184. 


282 


The Old Regime in Europe 


67 . The Church 


Practically all European peoples in the eighteenth century 
called themselves Christians. The majority of them were 
Greek Catholics. The eastern and western branches 

Catholics 0 f Catholic Christianity began to draw apart 

during the earlier Middle Ages and finally separated in the 
eleventh century. This schism was never afterwards healed. 
The Eastern or Greek Church found its adherents principally 
among the inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula and the Russians. 
We have already learned how Peter the Great made the church, 
in Russia to all intents and purposes a department of the 
tsar’s autocratic government. 1 Such it remained until the 
Russian Revolution of 1917. 

The Western or Roman Church held undisputed sway 
throughout the rest of Europe before the Protestant Refor- 
Roman mation in the sixteenth century. Even after 

Catholics this religious upheaval, it continued to be the 
state church in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria proper, 
the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, and several of 
the Swiss cantons. Moreover, there were numerous Roman 
Catholics in Bohemia, Hungary, and Ireland. 

The success of the Roman Church in combating Protestant¬ 
ism had been mainly due to the Society of Jesus. That great 

Dissolution order ’ founded b y L °y° la in I S 34 , covered 
of the Europe with its schools and Asia and America 

Jesus 7 ° f with lts missions. As time went on, the increasing 
wealth, business activity, and political influence 
of the Jesuits raised up many enemies for them among the 
clergy, public officials, and the middle and lower classes. The 
result was the suppression of the order in Portugal, France, 
Spain, and other countries, and finally altogether by a papal 
decree of 1773. 2 That both European rulers and the Papacy 
should take this extreme step shows the growing strength of 
public opinion in the eighteenth century. 

1 See page 200. 

2 The Society of Jesus was revived by Pius VII in 1814. 


The Church 


283 


The Reformation made Lutheranism the state church in 
Prussia, Saxony, and the three Scandinavian countries. Angli¬ 
canism in England, Wales, and Ireland, and ^ 

_ . . 0 . ' . . Protestants 

Presbyterianism m Scotland and Holland held 

a similarly privileged position. There were also many Protes¬ 
tants in France, Switzerland, and southern Germany. 

The divisions among Protestants gave rise to new sects. 
The Unitarians, who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, 
gained followers in Poland and Hungary as early New Protes- 
as the sixteenth century and subsequently in the tant sects 
British Isles and the United States. Seventeenth-century 
England produced the Baptists, whose name was derived from 
their insistence on immersion of adults as the only proper 
form of baptism. The Society 
of Friends, or Quakers, as they 
are commonly called, also arose 
in England at this time. Their 
founder was George Fox, a 
weaver’s son. The Quakers re¬ 
jected all religious ceremonial, 
had no paid ministers, and did 
not observe the two sacraments 
of baptism and the Lord’s 
Supper. War and negro slavery 
were condemned as unchristian 
by the Quakers. 

Methodism took its start in 
the eighteenth century out of 
the preaching of The 
John Wesley and Methodlsts 
his associates. They worked 
among the common people of England and won a large fol¬ 
lowing by the fervor, piety, and strictness of their ways. The 
Methodists finally separated from the Anglican Church and 
became an independent denomination. 

The union of Church and State in both Catholic and Protes¬ 
tant countries seemed to make conformity to the established 



John Wesley 

After a painting by George Romney in 
the possession of W. R. Cassels, London. 


284 


The Old Regime in Europe 


religion essential for all citizens. Non-conformity was con- 
Reiigious sidered a crime, which the government stood 
intolerance ready to punish by fines, imprisonment, and even 
death. Heretics were burnt at the stake in eighteenth-century 
Spain. In France, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
(1685), Huguenots who held religious services were sent to the 
galleys. The Toleration Act (1689) in England, while allowing 
the Dissenters to worship publicly in their own way; did not 
extend this privilege to Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and Jews. 
Even where active persecution of non-conformists had ceased, 
the strict press censorship in most countries interfered with 
the free expression of thought on religious subjects. Only 
Holland, Switzerland, and Great Britain had accepted John 
Milton’s noble plea for unlicensed printing. “Give me,” 
wrote Milton, “liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely 
according to conscience, above all other liberties.” 1 
The clergy in Catholic lands kept much of the authority 
which they had exercised throughout the Middle Ages. Cases 
Ecclesiastical involving heresy or blasphemy were tried in their 
control own cour ts. They alone registered births and 

deaths and solemnized legal marriages. Hospitals and chari¬ 
table institutions remained under their direction. Clergymen 
taught and generally controlled the elementary and higher 
schools. One result of the Reformation was the introduction 
into some of the German states, Holland, Scotland, and the 
Puritan colonies of New England of schools supported by 
general taxation, so that every one might be able to read and 
interpret the Scriptures. But with such exceptions the public 
school system was almost unknown in Europe. The common 
people were usually uneducated. 


68. Liberal Ideas of Industry and Commerce; 
the Economists 

The abuses of the Old Regime were not greater in the eight¬ 
eenth century than for hundreds of years before, but now they 
were to be seriously attacked by thinkers who applied the 

1 Areopagitica (1644). 


Liberal Ideas of Industry and Commerce 285 

test of reasonableness to every institution. It was at this time 
that political economy, or economics, came into Political 
being. Economic science, which investigates such economy, or 
subjects as the production of wealth and its dis- econoimcs 
tribution as rent, interest, profits, and wages, the functions 
of money and credit, and the methods of taxation, had been 
studied in earlier times by those whose chief motive was to 
increase the riches of merchants and fill the treasuries of kings. 
Students in the eighteenth century took a wider view and began 
to search for the true causes of national well-being. 

The economists who flourished in France received the name 
of Physiocrats, 1 because they believed that natural laws ruled 
in the economic world. In opposition to the The 
Mercantilists, who held that the wealth of a Physiocrats 
nation comes from industry and commerce, some of the Physio¬ 
crats declared that it comes from agriculture. Manufacturers, 
said they, merely give a new form to materials extracted from 
the earth, while traders do nothing more than transfer com¬ 
modities from one person to another. Farmers are the only 
productive members of society. It was a striking doctrine to 
enunciate at a time when the peasantry formed, as has been 
said, the “beast of burden” of the Old Regime. This group 
of Physiocrats did a real service in insisting upon the importance 
of agriculture, even though they erred in assuming that it is 
the sole source of wealth. 

Another group of Physiocrats protested against the burden- 
come restraints imposed upon industry by the guilds and upon 
commerce by the governments. They advocated Laissez _ faira 
economic freedom. Any one should be allowed 
to make what things he likes; all occupations should be open to 
everybody; trade between different parts of the country should 
not be impeded by tolls and taxes; customs duties should not 
be levied on foreign goods. The Physiocratic teaching was 
summed up in the famous phrase laissez-faire — “let alone.” 

A Scotch professor of philosophy, Adam Smith, who had 
visited France and knew the Physiocrats, carried their ideas 

1 A term derived from two Greek words meaning “nature” and “to rule.” 


286 


The Old Regime in Europe 

across the Channel. His famous work on the Wealth of 
Adam Smith, Nations appeared in 1776, the year of American 
1728-1790 independence. It formed a new declaration of 
independence for industry and commerce. According to Smith 

the State should limit itself 
to only three duties : “ first, 
the duty of protecting the 
society from the violence 
and invasion of other inde¬ 
pendent societies; secondly, 
the duty of protecting, as far 
as possible, every member of 
the society from the injus¬ 
tice or oppression of every 
other member of it, or the 
duty of establishing an exact 
administration of justice; and 
thirdly, the duty of erecting 
and maintaining certain pub¬ 
lic works and certain public 
institutions, which it can 
never be for the advantage of any individual or small num¬ 
ber of individuals to erect and maintain. . . . ” 1 

Smith set forth the doctrine of laissez-faire so clearly and 
persuasively as to make a profound impression upon business 
men and statesmen. His arguments against mo- 
Adam n Smith no P°lies, bounties, and protective tariffs did much 
to secure the subsequent adoption of free trade 
by Great Britain and even affected Continental legislation. 
Thus the Wealth of Nations , judged by its results, must be 
accounted one of the most important books ever written. 

69. Liberal Ideas of Religion and Politics; the 
English Philosophers 

The eighteenth century was remarkable for eminent scientists. 
They continued the epoch-making work in mathematics and 

1 Wealth of Nations , bk. iv, chap. ix. 



Adam Smith 

A medallion by James Tassie. 






Liberal Ideas of Religion and Politics 287 

astronomy started during the Renaissance and made many 
contributions to physics, chemistry, geology, Advance of 
botany, and zoology. Scientific investigations, in science 
previous times pursued by lonely thinkers, now began to be 
carried on systematically by the members of learned societies. 
Italy led the way with the foundation at Naples and Rome 
of the first academies of science, and her example was followed 
at London, Paris, Berlin, and other European capitals. Never 
before had there been such widespread interest in nature and 
so many opportunities to uncover nature’s secrets. 

The advance of science, which immensely broadened men’s 
conceptions of the universe, could not fail to affect their atti¬ 
tude toward religion. The idea of the reign of Rationalism 
natural law in the physical world was now extended m rellgl0n 
to the spiritual world. Thinking men began to argue that the 
doctrines of Christianity should not be accepted on the author¬ 
ity either of the Church or of the Bible, but must be submitted 
to free inquiry. These champions of reason — the rationalists 
— especially flourished in Great Britain, where thought was 
less fettered than on the Continent. 

Some of the rationalists, including John Locke, defended 
Christianity as being the most reasonable of all religions. 
Nevertheless, in his famous Letters on Tolerance , John Locke, 
Locke made a plea for individual liberty of con- 1632-1704 
science. To persecute unbelievers, he argued, only transformed 
them into hypocrites. Religious belief is a state of mind, and 
the mind cannot be compelled to believe. If infidels were to 
be converted by force, it would be easier for God to do it 
“with armies of heavenly legions than for any son of the 
Church, how potent soever, with all his dragoons.” 

Other rationalists went beyond Locke and questioned the 
special claims of Christianity. They declared that the ques¬ 
tions over which Christian sects had disputed for The Deists 
centuries were really of minor importance; the 
essential thing was the doctrine common to all mankind. 
Thus they arrived at the conception of “natural religion,” 
which included simply the belief in a personal God and in 


288 The Old Regime in Europe 

man’s immortal soul. These thinkers received the name of 
Deists. 1 

By casting doubt on the efficacy of particular religions, 
the Deists gave an impetus to the demand for toleration of 
influence of all. Their speculations found a warm welcome 
the Deists j n France, where they helped to undermine rever¬ 
ence for the Church among the more intelligent classes. Deism 
in this way acted as a revolutionary ferment. 

Rationalism also invaded politics. British thinkers, of 
whom Locke in his Two Treatises on Government was again 
Rationalism the most prominent representative, developed a 
m politics theory of politics utterly opposed to the old 

doctrine of the divine right of kings. According to Locke, 
all men possess certain natural rights to life, liberty, and the 
ownership of property. To preserve these rights they have 
entered into a contract with one another, agreeing that the 
majority shall have power to make and execute all necessary 
laws. If the government, thus created, breaks the contract 
by violating man’s natural rights, it has no longer any claim 
to the allegiance of its subjects and may be legitimately over¬ 
thrown. 

To say that all government exists, or should exist, by the 
consent of the governed is to set up the doctrine of popular 
Popular sovereignty. How influential it was may be seen 
sovereignty f rom p assa g e s in the Declaration of Independence 
which reproduce the very words of Locke and other British 
writers. But their ideas found the heartiest reception in 
France. Enlightened members of the nobility and bour¬ 
geoisie , weary of royal despotism, took them up, expounded 
them, and spread them among the people. 

70. The French Philosophers 

France during the eighteenth century had not been able to 
Intellectual maintain the high position among European states 

leadership to which she had been raised by Louis XIV, and 

in the struggle for colonial empire she had been de¬ 
feated by Great Britain. Her intellectual leadership compen- 
1 Latin Deus, “God.” 


The French Philosophers 


289 


sated for all that she had lost. Throughout this century France 
gave birth to a succession of philosophers, whose ideas fell like 
fertilizing rain upon the arid soil of the Old Regime. Some of 
them had lived for a time in Great Britain as refugees from the 
persecution which too bold thinking involved at home. Their 
life there made them acquainted with the British system of 
constitutional monarchy — so unlike the absolutism of French 
kings — with the political theories of Locke, and with the ideas 
of the Deists, from whom they learned to submit time-honored 
beliefs to searching examination. 

A nobleman, lawyer, and judge, Montesquieu, spent twenty 
years in composing a single book on the Spirit of Laws. It is 
a classic in political science. There was nothing Montesquieu, 
revolutionary in Montesquieu’s conclusions. He 1689-1755 
examined each form of government in order to determine its 
excellencies and defects. The Brit¬ 
ish constitution seemed to him most 
admirable, as combining the vir¬ 
tues of monarchy, aristocracy, and 
democracy. Montesquieu especially 
insisted upon the necessity of sepa¬ 
rating the executive, legislative, and 
judicial functions of government, 
instead of combining them in the 
person of a single ruler. This idea 
influenced the French revolutionists 
and also had great weight with the 
framers of the Constitution of the 
United States. 

The foremost figure among the 
philosophers was Voltaire, who sprang from the bourgeoisie. 
He was not a deep thinker like Montesquieu, Voltaire, 
but was rather a brilliant and somewhat super- 1694-1778 
ficial man of letters. For more than half a century he 
poured forth a succession of poems, dramas, essays, biog¬ 
raphies, histories, and other works, so clearly written, so witty, 
and so satirical as to win the applause of his contemporaries. 



Montesquieu 


290 


The Old Regime in Europe 

Voltaire devoted a long life to the preaching of enlighten¬ 
ment. He was in no sense a revolutionist, and favored reform 

Voltaire and by royal 
the Church decree as 

being the simplest 
and most expeditious 
method. He made it 
his particular work to 
bring discredit on ec¬ 
clesiastical authority. 
The Church he re¬ 
garded as an inven¬ 
tion of self-seeking 
priests. A typical 
Deist, Voltaire insisted 
on the need of tolera¬ 
tion. “ Since we are all 
steeped in error and 
folly,” he said, “ we 
must forgive each 
other our follies.” His exposure of bigotry and fanaticism 
was needed in the eighteenth century. It has helped to create 
the freer atmosphere in which religious thought moves to-day. 

If Voltaire was the destroyer of the old, Rousseau was the 
prophet of the new. This son of a Geneva watchmaker, who 
Rousseau, wandered from one European capital to another, 

1712-1778 made a failure of everything he undertook and 

died poverty-stricken and demented. The discouragements 
and miseries of his career found expression in what he wrote. 
Rousseau felt only contempt for the boasted civilization of 
the age. He loved to picture what he supposed was once the 
“ state of nature,” before governments had arisen, before the 
strong had begun to oppress the weak, when nobody owned 
the land, and when there were no taxes and no wars. “Back 
to nature” was Rousseau’s cry. 

Such fancies Rousseau applied to politics in what was his 
most important book, the Social Contract. Starting with the as- 



A statue by J. A. Houdon in the 
Comedie Franjaise, Paris. 


The French Philosophers 291 

sertion that “man was born free and everywhere he is in chains,” 
he went on to describe a purely ideal state of The « Social 
society in which the citizens are ruled neither Contract,” 
by kings nor parliaments, but themselves make 1762 
the laws directly. The only way to reform the world, accord¬ 
ing to Rousseau, was to restore 
the sovereignty of the people, 
with “Liberty, Equality, Frater¬ 
nity” for all. As we have just 
learned, the idea that govern¬ 
ments and laws arise by volun¬ 
tary agreements among men, 
who may overthrow them for 
just cause, was not new; but 
Rousseau first gave it wide cur¬ 
rency. Frenchmen of every class 
read the Social Contract with 
avidity, and during the Revolu¬ 
tion they proceeded to put its 
democratic teachings into effect. 

Rousseau, Voltaire, and Mon¬ 
tesquieu were among the con- Jean Jacques Rousseau 
tributors to the famous Ency- After th ' P aint ; n f ” the Muste 

^ Camavalet, Paris. 

clopedia , a work in seventeen 

volumes which appeared after the middle of the eighteenth 
century. As the name indicates, it formed a The En- 
repository of all the scientific and historical cyclopedists 
knowledge of the age. The Encyclopedists, as its editors 
are known, sought to guide opinion, as well as to give in¬ 
formation. They were radical thinkers, who combined in a 
great effort to throw the light of reason on the dark places 
of the social order. Among the abuses attacked by them 
were religious intolerance, the slave trade, the cruel criminal 
law, and the inequitable system of taxation. The Encyclo¬ 
pedists even ventured to criticize absolutism in government. 
Their work thus set in motion a current of revolt which 
did much to undermine both Church and State in France. 



292 


The Old Regime in Europe 


Paternalism 


71 . The Enlightened Despots 

The ideas of the philosophers spread throughout those parts 
of Europe where French models were followed. Even kings 
and statesmen began to be affected by the spirit 
of reform. European rulers did not intend to 
surrender the least fraction of absolute power; they were still 
autocrats who believed in government by one strong man 
rather than by the democratic many; but with their despotism 
they combined a paternal solicitude for the welfare of their 
subjects. They took measures to secure religious toleration, 
to relieve poverty, to codify the laws, to provide elementary 
education, and to encourage scientific research. These activities 
have won for them the name of the “enlightened despots.” 

In Russia Catherine the Great posed as an enlightened despot. 
Catherine was a learned woman, at least for an empress. She 
Catherine wrote flattering letters to Voltaire and the other 
the Great Encyclopedists and conferred on them gifts and 
pensions. Montesquieu she especially admired, saying that were 
she the pope she would canonize him. But Catherine paid 
little more than lip-service to the ideas of the French philoso¬ 
phers. If she abolished torture, she did not do away with the 
knout; for capital punishment she only substituted the living 
death of exile in Siberia. Her toleration of dissenters from the 
Orthodox Church stopped short of allowing them to build 
chapels for public worship, and her passion for legislative reform 
grew cold when she found that she must begin by freeing the 
serfs. Catherine’s real attitude is exhibited in a letter to the 
governor of Moscow: “My dear prince, do not complain that 
the Russians have no desire for instruction; if I institute schools 
it is not for us, it is for Europe, where we must keep our position 
in public opinion. But the day when our peasants shall wish 
to become educated both you and I will lose our places.” 

Catherine’s contemporary, Frederick the Great, was a des- 
Frederick pot more sincere and more enlightened. He 
the Great worked harder and had fewer pleasures than any 
other king of his day. “Monarchs,” he once wrote, “are not 


293 


The Enlightened Despots 

invested with authority that they may riot in voluptuousness.” 
Although Frederick’s resources had been so completely drained 
by the Seven Years’ War that it was necessary for him to melt 
the silver in the royal palaces and debase the currency, his 
vigorous measures soon restored the national prosperity. He 
labored in a hundred ways to make Prussia the best-governed 
state in Europe. Thus, he founded elementary schools so that 
his subjects could learn at least to read and write, and reformed 
the courts so that everybody from high to low might be assured 
of impartial justice. A Deist in religion, the correspondent 
and friend of Voltaire, Frederick declared that every one should 
be allowed to get to heaven in his own way, and backed up his 
declaration by putting Roman Catholics on an equality with 
Protestants throughout 
the Prussian dominions. 

No less than thirty vol¬ 
umes, all in French, con¬ 
tain the poems, letters, 
and treatises on history, 
politics, and military mat¬ 
ters which Frederick man¬ 
aged to compose in the 
spare moments of a busy 
life. This philosopher on 
the throne held the atten¬ 
tion of his generation in 
the world of ideas as well 
as in that of diplomacy 
and war. 

In Austria, Joseph II, 1 
the eldest son of Maria Theresa, presented a less successful 
type of the enlightened despot. Joseph regarded Joseph n 
Frederick the Great as the ideal of a modern 
ruler. He wished to transform the various peoples in the 
Hapsburg realm, with all their differences of race, speech, 

1 Holy Roman Emperor, 1765-1790, and sole ruler of the Hapsburg realm, 1780- 
2790. 



Joseph II 

After a painting by A, von Maron. 


294 


The Old Regime in Europe 

religion, and aspirations, into a single unified nation. Ger¬ 
man officials sent out from Vienna were to administer the 
affairs of each province. The army was to be built up 
by compulsory service after the Prussian model. German 
was to be used everywhere as the official language. Most 
unwisely, however, Joseph tried to do in a short lifetime 
what all the Hapsburg rulers after him could not accomplish. 
The result was that his measures to Germanize Hungarians, 
Bohemians, Italians, and Netherlanders only aroused hostility 
and did not survive his death. The sentence that the king 
himself proposed as his epitaph was a truthful summary of 
his reign: “Here lies the man who, with the best intentions, 
never succeeded in anything.” 

Paternal government had two serious weaknesses. First, 
the despots could not determine the policy of their successors. 
Failure of An able and liberal-minded ruler might be fol- 
paternahsm lowed by a ruler who was indolent, extravagant, 
and unprogressive. In Prussia, for instance, the weak reign 
of Frederick the Great’s successor undid much of his work. 
The same thing happened in Spain and Portugal. Second, 
the despots, however enlightened, treated their subjects as 
children and enacted reforms without first discovering whether 
reformation was popularly desired. Because of these weak¬ 
nesses, the eighteenth-century conception of absolute monarchs 
ruling for their people’s good was certain to be superseded by 
the modern idea of the people ruling themselves. But to 
bring this about, a revolution was necessary. 

Studies 

i. Do monarchy and autocracy necessarily mean the same thing? 2. Compare 
the European estates or privileged classes with the castes of ancient and modern 
India. 3. Contrast the leading ideas of Mercantilism and Physiocracy. 4. Look 
up in an encyclopedia some account of the life and writings of Adam Smith. 5. What 
do you understand by laws of nature? Give some examples of such laws. 6. What 
was the origin of the names Quaker and Methodist? 7. Distinguish between deism 
(or theism) and atheism. 8. How did Locke’s theory of the social contract provide 
the intellectual justification for the “Glorious Revolution”? 9. Is there any 
reason to suppose that Rousseau’s “state of nature” ever existed anywhere? 
10. Why has Rousseau’s Social Contract been called “the Bible of the French 
Revolution” and “the gospel of modern democracy” ? 11. Show that Rousseau’s 



The Enlightened Despots 295 

ideas of government were far more radical than .the ideas of Montesquieu. 12. Why 
did not the reforms of the enlightened despots make a revolution unnecessary? 
13. “No reform can produce real good unless it is the work of public opinion, and 
unless the people themselves take the initiative.” Discuss the justice of this state¬ 
ment. 14. Describe those features of the Old Regime which led to the demand 
for “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” 15. “The evils of European society were 
rooted in feudalism and entrenched in privilege.” Comment on this statement. 
16. How do the facts presented in this chapter support the statement that “Great 
thinkers control the affairs of men, and by their discoveries regulate the march of 
nations” ? 


Canvassing for Votes 

One of Hogarth’s Election Prints, made in 1757 - The scene is laid before an inn. The 
landlord in the middle foreground is seen contending with an officer of the Crown for the vote 
of a newly arrived farmer, who slyly takes bribes from both. 












CHAPTER X 


THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789-1799 


72 . Preparation for the French Revolution 

What we call the French Revolution refers to a series of 
events in France, between 1789 and 1799, by which divine- 
Revoiu- right monarchy gave way to a republic and class 
tionary distinctions and privileges disappeared in favor 

of social equality. This revolution started in 
France, not because the misery of the people had become more 
intolerable there than in other parts of the Continent, but 
because France was then the most advanced of Continental 
countries. French peasants and artisans were free enough and 
intelligent enough to be critical of their government. Next to 
Great Britain, France contained the most numerous, prosper¬ 
ous, and influential bourgeoisie. Members of this class furnished 
the Revolution with its principal leaders. Even the nobility 
and clergy included many men who realized the abuses of the 
Old Regime and wished to abolish them. In short, the revo¬ 
lutionary impulse stirred all ranks of French society. 

That impulse came in part from across the Channel. The 
spectacle of the Puritan Revolution and the “Glorious Revo- 
Engiand lution” in the seventeenth century affected 
Frenchmen in the eighteenth century. The Eng¬ 
lish had put one king to death and had expelled 
another; they had established the supremacy of Parliament 
in the state. It was the example of parliamentary England 
which Montesquieu held up to the emulation of his country- 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xxx, “France 
on the Eve of the Revolution”; chapter xxxi, “Scenes of the French Revolu¬ 
tion.” Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 16, “ Decree Abolishing the Feudal 
System, 1789”; No. 17, “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citi¬ 
zen, 1789”; No. 18, “Address to All Peoples, 1792.” 

296 


and the 
Revolution 


Preparation for the French Revolution 297 

men. It was the political philosophy of the Englishman, 
John Locke, upon which Rousseau founded his doctrine of the 
sovereignty of the people. 

A- second impulse came from across the Atlantic. After 
the close of the War of American Independence, the French 
common soldiers, together with Lafayette and America 
other officers, returned home to spread republican and the 
doctrines. It is significant that in 1783 a French Revolutlon , 
nobleman translated and published all thirteen of the consti¬ 
tutions of the American states. Very important was the work 
of Benjamin Franklin, who for nearly a decade represented the 
American government at Paris. His engaging manners, practi¬ 
cal wisdom, and high principles won general admiration. The 
portrait of the Philadelphia printer hung in every house, and 
at republican festivals his bust figured side by side with that 
of Rousseau. “Homage to Franklin,” cried an enthusiastic 
Frenchman, “he gave us our first lessons in liberty.” 

To understand the outbreak of the French Revolution it is 
necessary to go back to the long reign of Louis XV. 1 France 
had never had so unkingly a sovereign as this Louis xv> 
successor of the “Grand Monarch.” All his life king, 
he was an idler. He hunted, he danced, he 1715 1774 
gambled, he sank deep in the frivolities and immoralities of 
Versailles, he did everything but rule. The government fell 
more and more into the hands of courtiers and adventurers, 
whose main concern was to line their own pockets at the expense 
of the public treasury. 

The foolish alliances and fatal wars upon which Louis XV 
was persuaded to enter reduced France to the position of a 
second-rate power. In the Seven Years’ War Decline of 
French armies were repeatedly vanquished on France 
Continental battle-fields, and French fleets were swept from the 
high seas. When the Peace of Paris was signed in 1763, the 
French flag ceased to fly in North America, and it flew in India 
only by permission of England. The annexation of Lorraine 
(1766) and Corsica (1768) did not compensate for the loss of 

1 Great-grandson of Louis XIV. See page 189, note 1. 


The French Revolution 


298 


a colonial empire. 1 The military failures of the king’s reign 
humiliated his subjects and undermined their loyalty to him. 

The wars and extravagance of Louis XV added to the legacy 
of debt with which his predecessor on the throne had saddled 
Financial France. The treasury every year faced a chronic 

distress deficit. It could only be met by the dangerous 

expedient of fresh loans, involving still larger outlays for in¬ 
terest charges. As long as the government refused to take 
proper measures of economy and continued to exempt the clergy 
and nobility from their share of taxation, little improvement 
of the financial situation was possible. France, the richest 
country in Europe, with a population greater than that of any 
rival state, became virtually bankrupt. 

The French monarchy, so despised abroad, had to face 
a growing volume of complaints at home. Louis XV did his 
Complaints best to stifle them. A rigid censorship muzzled 
against the the press. Postoffice officials opened letters 
monarchy p ass ing through the mails and revealed their 
contents to the king. Books and pamphlets, obnoxidus to the 
government, were burned by the common hangman, and their 
authors were imprisoned. No man’s personal liberty was safe, 
for the police, if provided with an order of arrest signed by the 
king (a lettre de cachet ), could send any one to jail. Suspected 
persons sometimes remained prisoners for years without trial. 
Yet in spite of all measures of repression, opposition to the 
monarchy steadily increased. 

Louis XV was able to read the signs of the times. He knew 
“After me, that the Old Regime could not last much longer; 
the deluge ” but he felt sure that it would last his lifetime. 

“ After me, the deluge,” he said. The deluge soon came. 

73 . Eve of the French Revolution 

Louis XVI, the grandson of Louis XV, mounted the throne 
Louis XVI, when only twenty years old. Virtuous, pious, 

king, 1774- and well-meaning, he was the sort of ruler who 

in quiet times might have won the esteem of 
the French people. He was, however, weak, indolent, slow 

1 See the map on page 184. 














































































V 


















































S' 




* 























. 




















































- 

-• 
































































































Eve of the French Revolution 


299 

of thought, and very slow of decision. It has been well said 
that Louis XVI “ could love, forgive, suffer, and die,” but that 
he did not know how to reign. 

At his side, presiding over the gay court of Versailles, stood 
Marie Antoinette of Austria, daughter of Maria Theresa. 
This beautiful and lovable, though frivolous Marie 
and light-minded, woman exerted a most unfor- Antoinette 
tunate influence on Louis XVI, whom she surpassed in ability. 



The French Peasant under *Taille, Tax, and Corvee 

After an engraving of 1789 in the Hennin Collection, Paris. 


She constantly interfered in matters of state to support some 
mistaken policy or an incompetent minister. The queen had 
many enemies in France because of her nationality, and she 
increased them by lavish expenditures on herself and on her 
favorites. The chief charge later to be hurled against “ Madame 
Deficit ” was that she had wasted the resources of France. 

The youthful king had the good fortune to begin his reign 
auspiciously by appointing a new ministry, in Turgot’s 
which Turgot held the most responsible position, 

He was a friend of Voltaire, a contributor to 1774-1776 
the Encyclopedia, an economist of the Physiocratic school, 






3 °° 


The French Revolution 


and a successful administrator. Turgot drew up a compre¬ 
hensive program of reforms. He would allow complete free¬ 
dom of the press, establish a national system of education, 
recall the Huguenots, and admit the bourgeoisie to all public 
offices. 

Turgot summed up his financial policy in the three maxims, 
“No bankruptcy, no increase of taxation, no loans.” Expenses 
Financial were to be reduced by cutting off the pensions to 
policy of courtiers, whose only merit was, in the words of a 


Turgot 

to be born.’ 


contemporary writer, 


“to have taken the trouble 
The taxes bearing most heavily on the Third 
Estate were to be replaced 
by a general tax on all land- 
owners. Peasants were to 
be no longer forced to 
work without pay on public 
highways and bridges. The . 
old guilds, which hampered 
industry, were to be abol¬ 
ished. The vexatious tolls 
and duties on the pas¬ 
sage of grain from one 
province to another were 
to be swept away. Could 
such reforms have been 
carried out, France would 
have had a bloodless and 
orderly revolution. 

But they were not carried out. The privileged classes would 
not surrender their privileges, nor favorites their pensions, nor 
Fall of monopolists their unjust gains, without a struggle. 

Turgot The weak king, who once declared that “ the only 

persons who truly love the people are Monsieur Turgot and 
myself,” failed to support him against the intrigues of Marie 
Antoinette and the court party. Turgot’s dismissal from 
office after two years of power removed the one man who could 
have saved absolutism in France. 



A medal in joint honor of Turgot and Adam 
Smith, struck by the Societe d’lCconomie Poli¬ 
tique in 1876. 


The Estates-General 


301 


The finances of the government went from bad to worse 
after the fall of Turgot. His successors in the ministry relied 
mainly on fresh loans to cover the deficits of the Financial 
treasury and avert bankruptcy. From the stand- chaos 
point of French interests, Louis XVI committed a fatal error 
in allowing himself to be persuaded to intervene in the War 
of American Independence. America was freed; Great Britain 
was humbled; but the war forced up the public debt of France 



Costumes of the Orders 


After an old print. The cleric wears a robe and ornamented mantle; the noble, 
a suit of black silk and a cap adorned with plumes; the representative of the Third 
Estate, a simple black suit without gold buttons or plumed cap. 

by leaps and bounds. When at last it became impossible to 
borrow more money, the king yielded reluctantly to the popular 
demand for the convocation of the Estates-General. He ap¬ 
pealed to the nation for aid, thereby confessing the failure of 
absolutism. 

74. The Estates-General, 1789 

The Estates-General, the old feudal assembly of France, had 
not met for one hundred and seventy-five years. 1 The Estates _ 
Suddenly awakened from their long slumber, the General 
representatives of the clergy, the nobles, and ^^5, 6 1789 
the Third Estate appeared at Versailles to take 
counsel with the king. The written instructions (cahiers), 

1 See page 182. 



3° 2 


The French Revolution 


drawn up in every part of the country for the guidance of each 
representative, though not revolutionary in wording, set forth a 
long list of abuses to be removed. While Louis XVI would 
have been satisfied with measures to increase the revenues, 
most Frenchmen wanted thoroughgoing reforms. 

Not quite half of the twelve hundred-odd members of the 
Estates-General belonged to the two privileged orders'. About 

„ t . two-thirds of the delegates of the Third Estate 

Membership ° . 

of the were members of the legal profession. A few 

Estates- were iib era i nobles. Less than a dozen came from 

General 

the lower classes. As a whole, the Estates-General 
represented the most prosperous and intelligent people of 
France. 

The Third Estate possessed two very competent leaders in 
Count Mirabeau and the Abbe Sieyes. The former belonged 

Mirabeau by birth and 
and Sieyes the latter by 
office to the privileged classes, 
but both gladly accepted 
election as representatives 
of the Third Estate. Mira¬ 
beau, a born statesman and 
orator, had a sincere belief 
in constitutional government. 
He wished to set up in 
France a strong monarchy, 
limited by a constitution 
after the English model. 
Sieyes, a cleric more devoted 
to politics than to theology, 
Mirabeau had recently stirred all 

Frenchmen by a remark¬ 
able pamphlet entitled What is the Third Estate? He answered, 
“Everything.” “What has it been hitherto?” “Nothing.” 
“What does it ask?” “To be something.” 

The three estates in former days sat as separate chambers 
and voted by orders. If this usage were now followed, the 



The Estates-General 


303 

clergy and the nobility would have two votes to one for 
the Third Estate. The commoners insisted, Organization 
however, that the new Estates-General no EstSes- 
longer represented feudal France, but the united General 
nation. They wished, therefore, that it should organize as 
a single body, in which the 
members voted as individuals. 

Since the Third Estate had been 
permitted to send twice as many 
delegates as either the clergy or 
the nobility, this arrangement 
would enable it to outvote the 
privileged orders and carry any 
reforming measures desired. 

The debate over the organi¬ 
zation of the Estates-General 
continued for several The National 

weeks and resulted Assembly 
declared, 

in a deadlock. At June 17, 
last, on the motion 1789 
of Sieyes, the Third Estate cut 
the Gordian knot by boldly declaring itself the National 
Assembly. Then and there it asserted its right to act for 
the nation as a whole. Representatives of the clergy and 
nobility might come in if they pleased, but the National Assem¬ 
bly could do without them. 

Louis XVI, left to himself, might have been too inert for 
resistance, but his wife, his two brothers, and the court party 
persuaded him to make a stand. Troops were <t Tennis 
now posted before the doors of the hall which had court Oath,’* 
been set apart in the palace of Versailles for the J^ne 20 » 
Third Estate. Finding their entrance barred, the 
undaunted commoners adjourned to a building nearby, which 
had been used as a tennis court. Here they took a solemn 
oath never to separate, but to continue to meet, under all 
circumstances, until they had drawn up a constitution for 
France. This action brought to their side the representatives 



Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes 


The French Revolution 


304 


of the lower clergy {cures), who were inclined to the popular 
cause. 

But the king persisted in his opposition. Summoning the 
three estates before him, he made known the royal will that 
The National they should deliberate apart. The higher clergy 

Recognized an< ^ nobility immediately withdrew to Their sepa- 

june 27, * rate chambers. The Third Estate, with its clerical 

1789 supporters, did not stir. When the master of 

ceremonies repeated the king’s command, Mirabeau retorted, 
“We are assembled by the national will; force alone shall 
disperse us.” Louis XVI did not dare to use force, especially 
after many of the nobles, headed by Lafayette, joined the 
commoners. The king now gave way and requested the rest 
of the clerical and noble representatives to unite with the 
Third Estate in the National Assembly. 


75 . Outbreak of the French Revolution 

Thus far we have been following a constitutional movement 
confined to the upper and middle classes of French society. 
Revolu- Now, however, the lower classes began to make 
tionary Paris their influence felt upon the course of events, first in 
Paris and later in the provinces. Paris was a manufacturing 
center, with a large population of artisans, very poor, often 
idle, and inclined to be turbulent. Their ranks were swelled 
at this time by crowds of peasants, whom the bad harvests and 
severe winter of the preceding year had driven into the city. 
Here, in fact, were all the elements of a dangerous mob, on 
whose ignorance and passion reformers, agitators, and dema¬ 
gogues could play what tunes they willed. 

Soon came ominous news. Louis XVI had hardly accepted 
the National Assembly before he changed his mind and de- 
Fali of the termined to dissolve that body. A large number 
Bastille, of troops, mainly German and Swiss regiments 
1789 ' m the service of France, were massed near Paris, 
obviously with intent of awing, perhaps seizing, 
the representatives of the people. It was then that the Pa¬ 
risians made the cause of the National Assembly their own. 


THE “TENNIS COURT OATH” 

After the painting by J. L. David. Versailles Gallery. 













Outbreak of the French Revolution 


305 

Rioting broke out in the capital, and for several days anarchy 
prevailed. Reinforced by deserters from the army, the mob 
attacked and captured the Bastille, a fortress where political 
offenders had been often confined through lettres de cachet . 



The Storming of the Bastille 


A picture by a contemporary artist. Lafayette sent the key of the Bastille to Washington 
at Mount Vernon, with these words: “ It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adopted 
father, as an aide-de-camp to my general, as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch.” 

The Bastille at this time contained only seven prisoners, all 
there for just cause, but it symbolized the tyranny of the Old 
Regime, and its fall created an immense sensation throughout 
France and in other countries. Louis XVT, on hearing the news, 
exclaimed, “Why this is a revolt!” “No, Sire,” replied a 
courtier, “this is a revolution.” 

Now that Paris was practically independent of royal control, 












306 


The French Revolution 


The Com¬ 
mune and 
the National 
Guard 


the more prominent and well-to-do citizens took steps to secure 
an orderly government. They formed a municipal 
council, or Commune, made up of representatives 
elected from the different wards of the city. A 
militia force, called the National Guard, was also 
organized, and the popular Lafayette was selected as com¬ 
mander. Meanwhile, Louis XVI had seen the necessity of 
submission. He withdrew the troops, got rid of his reactionary 
ministers, and paid a visit of recon¬ 
ciliation to the Parisians. In token 
of his good intentions, the king put 
on a red, white, and blue cockade, ' 
red and blue being the colors of Paris 
and white that of the Bourbons. 
This was to be the new tricolor of 
France. 

The example set by Paris was 
quickly copied by the provinces. 

Revolution Man y cities and towns 

in the set up communes 

provinces and f orme( j national 

guards. In the country districts the 
peasants sacked and burned those 
local bastilles, the chateaux, taking 
particular pains - to destroy the legal 
documents by which the nobles 
exercised their manorial rights. 
Monasteries, also, were often pil¬ 

laged. The government showed it¬ 
self unable to maintain order or to 
Troops in the garrison towns refused 
to obey their officers and fraternized with the populace. Royal 
officials quitted their posts. Courts of justice ceased to act. 
Public works stopped, and the collection of taxes became al¬ 
most impossible. From end to end of France the Old Regime 
collapsed amid universal confusion. 

The revolution in the provinces led directly to one of the 



A Soldier of the National 
Guard 

protect life and property. 



Outbreak of the French Revolution 


307 

most striking scenes of French history. On the night of August 
4-5, while the National Assembly had under August 4-5, 
consideration measures for stilling the unrest in 1789 
France, one of the nobles — a relative of Lafayette — urged 
that it remove the feudal burdens still resting on the peasantry. 
Then, amid hysterical enthusiasm, noble after noble and cleric 
after cleric arose in his place to propose equality of taxation, 



A contemporary cartoon representing the French people hammering to pieces with their 
flails all the emblems of the feudal system, including the knight’s armor and sword and 
the bishop’s crosier and miter. 


the repeal of the game laws, the freeing of such serfs as were 
still to be found in France, the abolition of tithes, tolls, and 
pensions, and the extinction of all other long-established privi¬ 
leges. A decree “abolishing the feudal system” was passed by 
the National Assembly within the next few days and was 
signed by the king. The reforms which Turgot labored in 
vain to secure thus became accomplished facts. It is well 
to remember, however, that the Old Regime had already 
fallen in France; the decree of the National Assembly did 
little more than outlaw it. 

Times were hard in Paris. Employment was scarce, and 









The Louvre and the Tuileries 

After an old print. The palace of the Louvre was begun by Francis I in the sixteenth 
century and continued by his successors, especially Louis XIV. Important additions 
were made during the nineteenth century. The Tuileries palace, so named from the tile 
kilns ( tuileries ) which once occupied the site, was burned in 1871. Nothing remains of 
the structure except two wings connected with the Louvre. 


3o8 




































































































































The National Assembly 309 

food was dear. The discontent grew in proportion, especially 
among the women, who had to stand in line many October 5-6, 
hours at a time waiting to purchase a few loaves 1789 
of bread at the bakeries. Rumor accused the court and the 
aristocrats of deliberately causing famine, nay, of plotting to 
overturn the revolution by force. A newspaper published the 
statement — quite unfounded — that during a banquet of 
army officers at Versailles the national cockade had been 
insulted and trampled under foot. Here was the spark which 
caused the explosion. On October 5 a mob of hungry women, 
armed with every sort of weapon, even scythes and pitchforks, 
set out for Versailles to demand bread of the king. It was a 
strange procession that straggled along the twelve miles of 
highway from Paris to Versailles; an eyewitness declares that 
it reminded him of an army of crusaders. Early in the morning 
of October 6 , some of the women made their way into the palace, 
killed the sentinels, and entered the apartments of Marie 
Antoinette, who escaped with difficulty. Only the arrival of 
Lafayette at the head of the National Guard prevented further 
rioting and bloodshed. The women were finally quieted by 
the king’s promise to remove to Paris with his wife and children. 
That afternoon the royal family set out on their sorrowful 
journey to the capital, accompanied by a mob which yelled, 
“We are bringing the baker, the baker’s wife, and the baker’s 
little boy.” Henceforth Louis XVI lodged in the palace of 
the Tuileries, where he found himself, in effect, a prisoner 
of the Parisians. 

76. The National Assembly, 1789-1791 

The National Assembly declared itself inseparable from the 
king’s person and followed him to Paris. It remained in 
session there for the next two years. One of its The departe- 
most important undertakings was the reform of ments 
local government. During the eight centuries between Hugh 
Capet and Louis XVI, France had been built up by the gradual 
welding together of a number of provinces varying greatly in 
size, and each with its own privileges, customs, and laws. 


3 IQ 


The French Revolution 


Eighteenth-century France, in consequence, did not form a 
compact, well-organized state. The old provinces were now 
replaced by eighty-three artificial districts ( departments ), 
approximately uniform in size and population and named after 
some river, mountain, or other natural feature. A map of 
contemporary France still shows the departements. 

The National Assembly next undertook a reorganization 

of the Church. It ordered that all Church lands should be 

Ecclesiastical declared national property, broken up into small 
legislation lots, and sold to the peasants at a low price. 
By way of partial indemnity, the government agreed to pay 

fixed salaries to 
the clergy. All 
appointmen ts 
to ecclesiastical 
positions were 
taken from the 
hands of king 
and pope and 
placed in the 
hands of the 
An Assignat people. The 

electors of a de¬ 
partment chose their bishop, and those of a district their cure. 
The National Assembly also suppressed the monasteries, but 
undertook to pension the monks and nuns. 

The desperate condition of the finances led to the adoption 
of a desperate remedy. The National Assembly passed a 
The decree authorizing the issue of notes to the value 

assignats 0 f f our hundred million francs on the security of 
the former Church lands. To emphasize this security the title 
of assignats was given to the notes. If the issue of assignats 
could have been restricted, as Mirabeau desired, to less than 
the value of the property pledged to pay for them, they might 
have been a safe means of raising a revenue; but the continued 
needs of the treasury led to their multiplication in enormous 
quantities. Then followed the inevitable consequences of 


ZkxiiaJjte&Hiationcwx. 

Assignat 

cl^^iarliVres ? 

payaMe^’juporteur. 


Serie 


6329 

















The National Assembly 311 

paper money inflation. Gold and silver disappeared from 
circulation, while prices rose so high that the time came when 
it needed a basket of assignats to buy a pair of boots. The 
assignats in the end became practically worthless. The finances 
of the government, instead of being bettered by this resort to 
paper money, were left in a worse state than before. 

The National Assembly gave to France in 1791 the written 
constitution which had been promised in the “ Tennis-Court 
Oath.” 1 The constitution established a legis- The Con _ 
lative assembly of a single chamber, with wide stitution of 
powers over every branch of the government. 1791 
The hereditary monarchy was retained, but it was a monarchy 
in little more than name. The king could not dissolve the 
legislature, and he had only a “suspensive veto” of its measures. 
A bill passed by three successive legislatures became a law 
even without his consent. Mirabeau wished to accord the 
king greater authority, but the National Assembly distrusted 
Louis XVI as a possible traitor to the Revolution and took every 
precaution to render him harmless. The distrust which the 
bourgeois framers of the constitution felt toward the lower 
classes was shown by the clause limiting the privilege of voting 
to those who paid taxes equivalent to at least three days’ 
wages. Almost one-half of the citizens, some of them peasants 
but most of them artisans, were thus excluded from the fran¬ 
chise. 

The National Assembly prefixed to the constitution a Decla¬ 
ration of the Rights of Man. This memorable document, which 
shows Rousseau’s influence 2 in almost every line, Declaration 
formed a comprehensive statement of the principles 0 f the 
underlying the Revolution. “Men,” it affirmed, of 

“are born free and remain free and equal in rights. 

Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. 
The aim of all political association is the preservation of the 
natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are 
liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. The 

1 Hence the National Assembly is also called the Constituent Assembly. 

2 See page 291. 


3 12 


The French Revolution 


principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. 
No body or individual may exercise any authority which does 
not proceed directly from the nation. Liberty consists in the 
freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the 
exercise of the natural rights of each man has' no limits except 
those which assure to the other members of the society the 
enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can be determined 
only by law. Law can prohibit only such actions as are hurtful 
to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden 
by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided 
for by law. Law is the expression of the public will. Every 
citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his 
representative, in its formation. It must be the same for all, 
whether it protects or punishes.” 

From these general principles the framers of the Decla¬ 
ration went on to enumerate the rights of man, rights which 
Contents of f° r the most part had been ignored or violated 
the Declara- under the Old Regime. All persons, it was said, 

shall be equally eligible to all dignities, public 
positions, and occupations, according to their abilities. No 
person shall be arrested or imprisoned except according to 
law. Any one accused of wrongdoing shall be presumed 
innocent until he is adjudged guilty. Every citizen may 
freely speak, write, and print his opinions, including his religious 
views, subject only to responsibility for the abuse of this free¬ 
dom. All the citizens have the right to decide what taxes 
shall be paid and how they are to be used. No one shall be 
deprived of his property, except for public purposes, and then 
only after indemnification. These clauses of the Declaration 
reappeared in the constitutions framed in France and other 
Continental countries during the nineteenth century. The 
document, as a whole, should be compared with the English 
Bill of Rights and the first ten amendments to the American 
Constitution. 

77. The First French Republic, 1792 

The first phase of the French Revolution was now ended. 
Up to this point it has appeared rather as a reformation, which 


The First French Republic 313 

abolished the Old Regime and substituted a limited monarchy 
for absolutism and divine right. Many men be- Phases of 
lieved that under the new constitution France the Revolu- 
would henceforth enjoy the blessings of peace and 11011 
prosperity. They were quickly undeceived. The French 
people, unfortunately, lacked all training in the difficult art 
of self-government. Between their political incapacity and 
the opposition of the reactionaries and the radicals, the 
revolutionary movement drifted into its second and more 
violent phase, which was marked by the establishment of a 
republic. 

The reactionaries consisted, in part, of nobles who had 
hastily quitted the country upon the outbreak of the Revo¬ 
lution. Their emigration continued • for several The 
years, until thousands of voluntary exiles (emi- enugres 
gres ) had gathered along the northern and eastern frontier of 
France. Headed by the king’s two brothers, the count of 
Provence 1 and the count of Artois , 2 they kept up an unceasing 
intrigue against the Revolution and even organized a little army 
to recover by force their titles, privileges, and property. 

Had the reactionaries included only the emigres beyond 
the borders, they might not have proved very troublesome. 
But they found support in France. The Consti- The non- 
tution of 1791 had made the clergy state officials, J ' unng clergy 
elected by the people and paid by the government. Such an 
arrangement could not be acceptable to sincere Roman Catho¬ 
lics, because it separated the Church from papal control. The 
pope, who had already protested against the confiscation of 
Church property and the dissolution of the monasteries, forbade 
the clergy to take the oath of fidelity to the new constitution. 
Nearly all the bishops and perhaps two-thirds of the cures 
obeyed him; these were called the non-juring clergy. Until 
this time the parish priests had generally supported the revo¬ 
lutionary movement. They now turned against it, carrying 
with them their peasant flocks. The Roman Catholic Church, 

1 Afterwards Louis XVIII (18x4-1824). 

8 Afterwards Charles X (1824-1830). 


3i4 


The French Revolution 


Opposition 
of Louis xvi violation 
and Marie 
Antoinette 


with all its spiritual influence, was henceforth arrayed against 
the French Revolution. 

To Louis XVI, practically a prisoner in the Tuileries, the 
new order of things was most distasteful. The constitution, 
soon to be put into effect, seemed to him a 
of his rights as a monarch, while 
the treatment of the clergy deeply offended him 
as a Christian. As long as Mirabeau lived, that 
statesman had always been able to dissuade the king from 
seeking foreign help, but Mirabeau’s premature death deprived 
him of his only wise adviser. Louis’s opposition to the revolu¬ 
tionists was strengthened by 


Marie Antoinette, who keenly 
felt the degradation of her 
position. 

The king and queen finally 
resolved to escape by flight. 

Disguising 
Flight of the ^ 

king and themselves, Ma- 

rie Antoinette 

20-21, 1791 

as a Russian 
lady and Louis as her valet, 
they drove away in the even¬ 
ing from the Tuileries and 
made straight for the east¬ 
ern frontier. But Louis ex¬ 
posed himself needlessly on 
the way; recognition fol¬ 
lowed; and at Varennes, near 
the border, excited crowds stopped the royal fugitives and 
turned them back to Paris. This ill-starred adventure' greatly 
weakened the loyalty of the French people for Louis XVI, 
while Marie Antoinette, the “Austrian woman,” became more 
detested than ever. 

, Besides the reactionaries who opposed the Revo- 
The radicals , . , . 

lution, there were the radicals who thought that it 

had not gone far enough. The radicals secured their chief fol- 



Danton 

Presumably a portrait by J. L. David, painted 
either in 1792 or 1793. In the possession of 
Dr. Robinet. 


The First French Republic 315 

lowing among the poverty-stricken workingmen of the cities, 
those without property and with no steady employment. Of 
all classes in France, the urban proletariat 1 seemed to have 
gained the least by the Revolution. No chance of future 
betterment lay before them, for the bourgeois Constitution of 
1791 expressly provided that only tax-payers could vote or hold 
public office. The proletariat might well believe that, in 
spite of all high-sounding phrases about the “ rights of man,” 
they had merely exchanged one 
set of masters for another, the 
rule of the privileged classes for 
that of the bourgeoisie. 

The radical movement natu¬ 
rally centered in Paris, the brain 
and nerve center of Radical 
France. It was fos- Propaganda 
tered by inflammatory news¬ 
papers such as Marat’s The 
Friend of the People , 2 which agi- * 
tated for a popular uprising 
against the government, by the 
bitter speeches of popular ora¬ 
tors, and especially by numerous 
political clubs. The control of 

. 111 1 . . ,1 A reputed portrait by J.B. Greuze, in 

these clubs lay largely in the the possession of Lord Rosebery. 

hands of young lawyers, who 

embraced the cause of the masses and soon became as 
hostile to the bourgeoisie as to the aristocracy. The famous 
Jacobin Club, so named from a former monastery of the Jacobin 
monks where its meetings were held, had hundreds of branches 
throughout France, all engaged in radical propaganda. 

The leaders of the Jacobin Club included two men who were 
destined to influence profoundly the subsequent course of the 
Revolution. One was Danton, who sprang from Danton and 
the middle class. Highly cultivated, a successful Robespierre 
advocate at the bar, Danton with his loud voice and forcible 
1 See page 281 and note 1. 2 L’Ami du Peuple. 



Robespierre 


The French Revolution 


3 i 6 

gestures could arouse his audience to wild enthusiasm. The 
other was Robespierre, also a middle-class lawyer with demo¬ 
cratic sympathies. This austere, precise little man, whose 
youth had been passed in poverty, early became a disciple 
of Rousseau and the oracle of the Jacobins.' Mirabeau once 
prophesied of Robespierre that he would “go far; he believes 
all that he says.” We shall soon see how far he went. 



The Lion of Lucerne 


This celebrated work at Lucerne in Switzerland was designed by the Danish sculptor 
Bertel Thorwaldsen and was dedicated in 1821. It represents a dying lion, which, pierced 
by a lance, still guards with its paw the Bourbon lilies. The figure is hewn out of the 
natural sandstone. The monument commemorates the officers and men of the Swiss 
Guard who were slain in 1792, while defending the Tuileries against the Parisian mob. 

A new influence began at this point to affect the course 
of the French Revolution. Continental monarchs, however 
War with “enlightened,” felt no sympathy for a popular 

Austria and movement which threatened the stability of 

Ffl ssia ’ April> their own thrones. If absolutism and divine 

1792 

right were overthrown in France, they might 

before long be overthrown in Austria and Prussia. The Aus¬ 
trian emperor, a brother of Marie Antoinette, now joined with 
the Prussian king in a statement to the effect that the restoration 
of the old monarchy in France formed an object of “common 
interest to all sovereigns of Europe.” The two rulers also 


The National Convention 


3i7 


agreed to prepare their armies for active service abroad. Their 
announced intention to suppress the Revolution by force pro¬ 
voked the French people into a declaration of war. Though 
directed only at the Austrian emperor, it also brought his 
Prussian ally into the field against France. 

The French began the contest with immense enthusiasm. 
They regarded themselves as armed apostles to spread the 
gospel of freedom throughout Europe. But their 
troops, poorly organized and disciplined, suffered 
severe reverses, one result of which was further 10, 1792 
to exasperate public opinion against the monarchy. 

Suspicion pointed to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as the 
traitors who were secretly revealing the French plan of cam¬ 
paign to the enemies of France. Suspicion passed into hatred, 
when the allied commander-in-chief, as he led his army across 
the frontier, issued a proclamation threatening Paris with 
destruction if the slightest harm befell the royal family. At 
this juncture the Jacobins under Danton organized an uprising 
of the Parisian proletariat. The mob stormed the Tuileries, 
massacred the Swiss Guard, and compelled the National As¬ 
sembly to suspend the king from office. A new assembly, 
to be called the National Convention, was summoned to pre¬ 
pare another constitution for France. 

Then followed the next scene in the bloody drama. The 

Commune of Paris, now controlled by the Jacobins, emptied 

the prisons of suspected royalists and butchered Proclamation 

them without mercy. More than one thousand of **1® 

republic, 

persons perished in the “ September massacres.” September 
Shortly afterwards the National Convention held 22 » 1792 
its first meetings and by a unanimous vote decreed the abolition 
of the monarchy. All public documents were henceforth to be 
dated from September 22, 1792, the beginning of “the first 
year of the French Republic.” 

78 . The National Convention, 1792-1795 

The National Convention contained nearly eight hundred 
members, all republicans, but republicans of diverse shades of 


318 The French Revolution 



opinion. One group was that of the Girondists, so-called be¬ 
cause its leaders came from the departement of 
Parties in the Gironde. The Girondists represented largely 
Convention the bourgeoisie; they desired a speedy return 
to law and order. Opposite them sat the far 
more radical and far more resolute group of Jacobins, who 

leaned for sup¬ 
port upon the 
turbulent popu¬ 
lace of Paris. The 
majority of the 
delegates be¬ 
longed to neither 
party and voted 
now on one side 
and now .on the 
other. Eventu¬ 
ally, however, 
they fell under 
Jacobin domina¬ 
tion. 

The feud be¬ 
tween the two 

Trial and P* 1 * 8 
execution broke 

xvfms out in 

thenrst 


Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and 
the Dauphin 

After a painting by P. Sauvage. 


days of the 
National Con¬ 
vention. The Ja¬ 
cobins clamored 

for the death of Louis XVI as a traitor; most of the Giron¬ 
dists, less convinced of the king’s guilt, would have spared 
his life. Mob influence carried through the assembly, by a small 
majority, the vote which sent “Citizen Louis Capet” to the guil¬ 
lotine. The king’s accusers did not have the evidence, which 
we now possess, proving that he had been in constant commu- 






































The National Convention 


3i9 


nication with the foreign invaders. His execution was a polit¬ 
ical measure. Louis must die,” urged Robespierre, “that the 
country may live.” Danton, railing against the enemies of 
France, could now declare, “We have thrown them as gage of 
battle the head of a king.” 

Meanwhile, the tide of foreign invasion receded rapidly. 
Two days before the inauguration of the republic the French 
stayed the advance of the allies at Valmy, scarcely First Coali _ 
a hundred miles from Paris. The battle of Valmy tion against 
was a small affair, but it first gave confidence France ’ 1793 
to the revolutionary armies and nerved them for further re- 



Execution of Louis XVI 

After a contemporary print. 


sistance. The French now took the offensive and invaded 
the Austrian Netherlands. Fired by these successes, the 
National Convention offered the aid of France to all nations 
which were striving after freedom; in other words, it proposed 
to propagate the Revolution by force of arms throughout 
Europe. This was a blow in the face to autocratic rulers and 
privileged classes everywhere. After the execution of Louis 
XVI Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and 


















The French Revolution 


3 2 ° 

Sardinia leagued together in the First Coalition to overthrow 
republican France. 

The republic at the same time was threatened by domestic 
insurrection. The peasants of La Vendee, a district to the 
Domestic south of the lower Loire, were royalists in feeling 
insurrection and deeply devoted to Roman Catholicism. When 
an attempt was made to draft them as soldiers, they refused to 
serve and broke out in open rebellion. 1 The important naval 

station of Toulon, a royalist 
center, surrendered to the 
British. A tremor of revolt also 
ran through the great cities of 
Lyons, Marseilles, and Bor¬ 
deaux, whose bourgeoisie . re¬ 
sented the radicalism of the 
Parisian proletariat. 

The peril to the republic, 
without and within, showed 
the need of a strong central 

Committee government. The 
of Public National Conven- 
Safety tion met this need 

by selecting twelve of its mem¬ 
bers to serve as a Committee 

Lazake Carnot of PubUc Safety, in which at 

first Danton, and later Robes¬ 
pierre, was the leading figure. The committee received almost 
unlimited authority over the fife and property of every one in 
France. It proceeded to enforce a general levy or conscription, 
which placed all males of military age at the service of the 
armies. This earliest of draft laws ran as follows: “ The young 
men shall go to fight; married men shall forge weapons and 
transport supplies; the women shall make tents and uniforms 
or serve in the hospitals; the children shall make lint; the old 
men shall be carried to the public squares to excite the courage 

1 Read Victor Hugo’s novel, Ninety-Three, which deals with the insurrection in 
La Vendee. 



The National Convention 


321 


of soldiers, hatred of kings, and enthusiasm for the unity of 
the republic.” Carnot, another member of the committee, 
the “organizer of victory” as he came to be called, drilled and 
disciplined the new national forces and sent them forth, singing 
the Marseillaise / to battle. 

The mercenary troops of old Europe could not resist these 
citizen-soldiers. Filled with enthusiasm and in overwhelming 
numbers, they soon carried the war into enemy Treaty of 
territory. The First Coalition dissolved under Basel » 1795 
the shock. By the Treaty of Basel in 1795 Prussia ceded her 
provinces on the west bank of the Rhine to France, which thus 
secured the “natural boundary” so ardently desired by Louis 
XIV. During this year Spain and Holland also made peace 
with France. Holland became the Batavian Republic under 
French protection. 

The Committee of Public Safety likewise dealt effectively 
with domestic insurrection. It resorted to a policy of terrorism 
as a means of suppressing the anti-revolutionary Terrorism 
elements. A law was passed which declared 
“suspect” every noble, every office-holder before the Revo¬ 
lution, every person who had had any dealings with an emigre , 
and every person who could not produce a certificate of 
citizenship. No one could feel safe under this law. As a wit 
afterward remarked, all France in those days went about con¬ 
jugating, “I am suspect, thou art suspect, he is suspect,” etc. 
Special courts were set up in Paris and the provincial cities to 
try the “suspects” and usually to order them to the guillotine. 

France endured the Reign of Terror for over a year. 2 During 

this time seventeen thousand persons, it has been estimated, 

were executed under form of law, while many Reign 0 f 

more were massacred without the pretense of a Terror, 

. . 1793—1794 

trial. The carnage spread beyond the non-juring 

clergy and the aristocracy to include the bourgeoisie and even 

many artisans and peasants. Among the distinguished victims 

1 A patriotic song, the words and music of which were composed in 1792 by 
Rouget de Lisle. 

2 Read Pickens’s novel, The Tale of Two Cities, the scenes of which are laid in 
London anc Paris during the revolutionary era. 


3 22 


The French Revolution 


at Paris were Marie Antoinette, the sister of Louis XVI, the 
duke of Orleans (a member of the royal house who had intrigued 
to get himself raised to the throne), and the principal Girondist 
leaders. Then the Terror began to consume its own authors. 
Dan ton, who had wearied of the bloodshed and counseled 
moderation, suffered death. “Show my head to the people,” 
he said to the executioner, “they do not see the like every day.” 
The fanatical Robespierre now became the virtual dictator 
of France. He continued the slaughter for a few months until 
his enemies in the National Convention secured the upper 
hand, and hurried him without trial to the death to which he 
had sent so many of his fellow-citizens. 

Robespierre’s execution ended the Reign of Terror. The 
policy of terrorism, however effective in crushing the enemies 
The Con- the re public, had long since been perverted to 

stitution of party and personal ends. The inevitable reaction 
against Jacobin tyranny followed. The bourgeoisie 
gained control of the National Convention, which now resmned 
its task of preparing a constitution for republican France. 
The new instrument of government provided for a legislature 
of two chambers and vested the executive authority in a Di¬ 
rectory of five members, with most of the powers of the former 
Committee of Public Safety. 

Before the constitution went into effect, Paris became the 
scene of another mob outburst. Royalists and radicals joined 
forces and advanced to the attack of the Tuileries, 
where the National Convention was sitting. 
Here the rioters met such a cannonade of grape 
shot that they fled precipitately, leaving many of 
their number dead in the streets. The man who most dis¬ 
tinguished himself as the defender of law and order was the 
young artillery general, Napoleon Bonaparte. 


Napoleon 
and the 
National 
Convention 


79 . The Directory, 1795-1799 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, Corsica, in 1769, 
only a year after that island became a French possession. 
He was the second son of an Italian lawyer of noble birth 


Revolutionary France and Italy 
















































































































































































The Directory 323 

but decayed fortunes. Napoleon attended a preparatory school 
in France and went through the ordinary curric- Early life of 
ulum with credit, showed proficiency in mathe- Napoleon 
matics, and devoted much of his leisure to reading history. 
After a brief military training in Paris,, he entered an artillery 
regiment, thus realizing 
his boyish desire to be a 
soldier. He was then a 
youth of sixteen years, 
poor, friendless, and with¬ 
out family influence. 

Napoleon took a keen 
interest in the reform 
movement Ri se of 
then Stirring Napoleon 
France. A devoted ad¬ 
mirer of Rousseau’s phi¬ 
losophy, he hated all 
privileges, all aristocracy, 
and for a time, at least, 
he became a Jacobin. The 
Revolution gave him his 
first opportunities. He 
commanded the artillery which compelled the British to evac¬ 
uate Toulon in 1793 and two years later he helped defend 
the National Convention against the Parisian mob. Shortly 
afterwards Carnot, who divined Napoleon’s genius, persuaded 
his colleagues on the Directory to intrust the young man 
with the command of the French army in Italy. 

When the Directory assumed office, France still numbered 

Great Britain, Sardinia, and Austria among her foes. Great 

Britain could not be assailed, because of the weak- N apo i eon in 

ness of the French navy, but the other two coun- Italy, 1796- 

1797 

tries offered fronts open to attack through northern 
Italy. Napoleon’s army, small and shabbily equipped, seemed a 
weak instrument for so formidable a task. But to the “Little 
Corporal,” as his men nicknamed him, all things were possible. 



Napoleon’s Birthplace, Ajaccio 




3 2 4 


The French Revolution 


“Soldiers,” he cried, “I desire to lead you into the most fertile 
plains in the world. Rich provinces and great cities will be 
in your power; you will find there honor, glory, and wealth. 
Soldiers of Italy, will you be wanting in courage and con¬ 
stancy?” Napoleon did not find them wanting in anything. 
His brilliant strategy first separated the Sardinians from their 

Austrian allies. 
The king of Sar¬ 
dinia then pur¬ 
chased peace by 
the cession of 
Savoy and Nice 
to France. After 
another year of 
fighting, which 
turned the Aus¬ 
trians out of 
northern Italy 
and brought the 
French to within 
eighty miles of 
Vienna, the Haps- 
burg emperor also stooped to make terms with this ever- 
victorious republican general. 

Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands, which 
had already been occupied by the republican armies, and 
Treaty of agreed to the annexatiofi by France of the Ger- 
Campo manic lands west of the Rhine. She also recog- 

Formio, 1797 n i ze( j th e independence of the Cisalpine Republic, 
one of Napoleon’s creations in northern Italy. In return for 
these concessions, Austria received most of the Venetian terri¬ 
tories conquered by Napoleon, including a valuable sea-coast 
along the Adriatic. France likewise profited by this Italian 
settlement, for both the Cisalpine Republic and the tiny Ligu¬ 
rian Republic (Genoa and the adjacent district) were under 
French influence. 

Great Britain now remained the only country to contest 















The Directory 


325 


French supremacy in Europe. Napoleon determined to strike 
at her through her Oriental possessions. It was Napoleon in 
necessary, first of all, to wrest Egypt from the Egypt, 1798- 
Ottoman Turks, for,* as Napoleon never tired of 1799 
asserting, “the power that is master of Egypt is master of 
India.” Napoleon easily per¬ 
suaded the Directory to give 
him the command of a strong 
expedition, which set sail from 
Toulon and reached Alexandria 
in safety. The French marched 
across the blazing sands to 
Cairo and defeated the Turkish 
troops in a battle near the 
pyramids. “Soldiers,” pro¬ 
claimed Napoleon, “from the 
summit of these pyramids forty 
centuries look down upon you.” 

The Egyptian compaign had 
hardly begun before Lord Nel¬ 
son, the British admiral, de¬ 
stroyed most of the French 
fleet in Abukir Bay, thus sever¬ 
ing Napoleon’s communications 
with Europe. The French soon 
overran Egypt, but met a 

severe check when they carried the war into Syria. Faced by 
the collapse of his Oriental dreams, Napoleon left his army to 
its fate and escaped to France. Here his highly colored reports of 
victories caused him to be greeted as the conqueror of the East. 

Affairs had gone badly for France during Napoleon’s absence 

in Egypt. Great Britain, Austria, and Russia _ 

° ^ ~ . . ’ Overthrow 

formed the Second Coalition against the republic, 0 f the 

put large armies in the field, and drove the ^ 7 gg Ctory * 

French from Italy. This misfortune sapped the 
authority of the Directory and turned the eyes of most French¬ 
men to Napoleon as the one man who could guarantee victory 



Horatio, Lord Nelson 

National Portrait Gallery, London 

A painting by L. F. Abbot of Nelson in 
1797. He wears on bis breast the Order of 
the Bath and round his neck, suspended by 
a ribbon, the gold medal for the battle of 
St. Vincent. 



3 2 6 


The French Revolution 


abroad and order at home. He took advantage of the situation 
to plan with Sieyes and other politicians a coup d’etat . 1 Three 
of the five directors were induced to resign; the other two were 
placed under military guard; and the bayonets of Napoleon’s 
devoted soldiers forced the assemblies to dissolve. Napoleon 
now became virtually master of France. “I found the crown 
of France lying on the ground,” he once remarked, “and I 
picked it up with the sword.” Thus, within little more than 
ten years from the meeting of the Estates-General at Versailles, 
popular government gave way to the rule of one man. Autoc¬ 
racy supplanted democracy. 


80 . The Revolutionary Era 

The French Revolution differed sharply from previous revolu¬ 
tionary movements. The Puritan Revolution and the “Glori- 
Principles ous Revolution” in England were carried out by 
of 1789 men Q f U pper and middle classes, who wished 

to limit the royal power and establish the supremacy of Parlia¬ 
ment. Even the American Revolution was guided by con¬ 
servative statesmen, at least as solicitous for the rights of 
property as for the rights of man. The French Revolution 
also began as mainly a middle-class movement, but it soon 
reached the lower classes. Their principles found expression 
in the famous motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” 

“Liberty” meant the recognition of popular sovereignty. 
Government was to be no longer the privilege of a divine-right 
ruler, however benevolent or “enlightened”; 
henceforth, it was to be conducted constitutionally 
in accordance with the will of the people. Since the first 
constitution (that of 1791) the French, have often changed 
their form of government, but they have always had a written 
constitution. The revolutionists also proclaimed with en¬ 
thusiasm the natural “rights of man” to freedom of thought, of 
speech, of publication, of worship, and of the ownership of 
property. 


“ Liberty ” 


1 French for a “stroke of state. 1 


The Revolutionary Era 327 

“Equality” meant the abolition of privilege. The Revo¬ 
lution made all citizens equal before the law. It opened to 
every one the positions in the civil service, the 
Church, and the army. It abolished serfdom and E< i ualit y 
manorial dues, thus destroying the last vestiges of feudalism. 
It suppressed the guilds, thus releasing industry from medieval 
shackles. It canceled all exemptions from taxation and sub¬ 
stituted a new fiscal system which taxed men according 
to their means. As we 
shall learn, Napoleon re¬ 
tained and extended these 
achievements of the Revo¬ 
lution. 

‘ ‘ Fraternity ’ 9 meant a 

new consciousness of 

human brotherhood. The 

revolutionists 

. “Fraternity” 
set out to 

make France a better place 
for every one to live in. 

This fraternal feeling in¬ 
spired all ranks and classes 
of the people. It led to 



Seal oe the French Republic, 
1792-1804 


a great outburst of patriotic and national sentiment, which 
enabled the French, singlehanded, to withstand Europe in 
arms. 

The principles of 1789 were not confined to France. The 
revolutionary soldiers passed from land to land bringing in 
their train the overthrow of the Old Regime. The spirit 
The effect was profound in the Netherlands, in of 1789 
western Germany, and in northern Italy, countries where the 
masses of the people had grievances and aspirations like those 
of the French. During the nineteenth century the revolution¬ 
ary spirit permeated other European countries, resulting every¬ 
where in a demand for the abolition of the established privileges 
of wealth, birth, and social position. Such has been the service 
of France as a liberator. 




328 


The French Revolution 


Studies 

i “The principal cause of the ruin of royalty in France was the lack of a King.” 
What does this statement mean? 2. Why is July 14 observed by the French as 
the “birthday of the nation”? 3. Compare the assignats with the paper money 
issued by the Confederacy during the Civil War. 4 How did the Austrians and 
Prussians justify their invasion of France in 1792? 5. Read a translation of the 

Marseillaise and compare the sentiments expressed in it with those of Hail Columbia 
and The Star Spangled Banner. 6. In your opinion was there greater or less justi¬ 
fication for the execution of Louis XVI than of Charles I? 7. In what sense is the 
word Jacobin now frequently used? 8. What excuse can be offered for the policy 
of terrorism adopted by the Jacobins in 1793? 9. Prepare a class-room report 

dealing with the story of Charlotte Corday. 10. Mention four conspicuous in¬ 
stances of mob action during the French Revolution. Why are mobs so often cruel 
and bloodthirsty? m-.Why may Napoleon’s coup d'etat in 1799 be regarded as 
the final scene of the French Revolution? 12. “England is the mother of liberty, 
France the mother of equality.” Explain this statement. 13. “The two most 
striking and important events in the history of the eighteenth century are the 
establishment of the United States of America and the outbreak of the French 
Revolution.” Justify this statement. 



A French Dragoon 
of the Time of 
the Consulate 


After a contemporary 
water-color. 


CHAPTER XI 


NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1799-18151 

81 . The Consulate, 1799-1804 

The history of France, from the overthrow of the Directory 
to the battle of Waterloo, forms the biography of Napoleon 
Bonaparte. At the time of the coup d’etat of Napoleon’s 
1799 he was not quite thirty years old. A foreign personality 
observer has left the following pen picture of the youthful 
Napoleon: “He is about five feet seven inches tall, delicately 
and gracefully made; his hair a dark brown crop, thin and 
lank; his complexion smooth, pale, and sallow; his eyes gray 
but very animated; his eyebrows light brown, thin and pro¬ 
jecting. All his features, particularly his mouth and nose, are 
fine, sharply defined, and expressive beyond description. The 
true expression of his countenance is a pleasing melancholy, 
which, when he speaks, relaxes into the most agreeable and 
gracious smile you can imagine. He speaks deliberately but 
very fluently, with particular emphasis, and in rather a low 
tone of voice.” 

Napoleon’s extraordinary abilities enabled him to take full 
advantage of the chances which the revolutionary era offered 
to men of talent and ambition. Endowed with character of 
a splendid constitution, he could toil eighteen Na P° leon 
hours a day and go without sleep for long periods. His mind 
kept its keenness after the most exhausting activities on the 
battle-field or in the council room. Sober in his habits, with 
little taste for art, letters, or the refinements of life, he lived 
only for work — the work of a warrior and a statesman. His 
military genius is admitted; he has no superiors, perhaps no 
equals, among the great captains of modern times. His ca- 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xxxii, “Letters 
and Proclamations of Napoleon”; chapter xxxiii, “Napoleon.” 

329 



230 Napoleon Bonaparte 

pacity as a civil ruler seems even more remarkable, considering 
how completely he reconstructed western and central Europe 
in sixteen years. Nor did his character lack an attractive 
side: he made devoted friends and could talk good-humoredly 

and frankly with all sorts of people. 
Yet no one can follow Napoleon’s 
career, especially in its later phases, 
without being impressed with the 
man’s selfishness, untruthfulness, 
and unscrupulousness. An insa¬ 
tiable appetite for war and the 
belief in the necessity of dazzling 
France by brilliant victories drove 
him into constant acts of aggres¬ 
sion and rendered him callous to 
human suffering. He could call a 
Russian battle-field, heaped with 
bodies of friend and foe, the 
“finest” he had ever seen, a re¬ 
mark which contrasts with Wel¬ 
lington’s words after Waterloo that 
“next to a battle lost the greatest misery is a battle gained.” 
Throughout Napoleon’s career, he appears as essentially an 
adventurer, skirting uneasily the edge of ruin and destined to 
fall at last a victim to the enemies he himself had made. 

After the coup d’etat Napoleon proceeded to frame a consti¬ 
tution. It placed the executive power in the hands of three 
The Con- consuls, appointed for ten years. The First 
stitution of Consul (Napoleon himself) was really supreme. 

To him belonged the command of the army and 
navy, the right of naming and dismissing all the chief state 
officials, and the proposal of all new laws. Napoleon then 
submitted the constitution to the people for ratification. The 
popular vote, known as a plebiscite, 1 showed an overwhelming 
majority in favor of the new government. 

1 From the Latin plebiscitum, referring to a vote or decree of the common poople 
( plebs ). 


Napoleon’s Mother 

A portrait in the room of Napoleon’s 
birth at Ajaccio. 




NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL 
After the painting by J.-B. Isabey. 
Versailles Gallery. 





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The Consulate 


33 1 


The French accepted Napoleon’s rule the more readily 
because of the threatening war-clouds in Italy and on the 
Rhine. Though Russia soon withdrew from the Marengo 
Second Coalition, Austria and Great Britain and Hohen- 
remained in arms against France. Napoleon now lmden ’ 1800 
led his troops across the Alps by the pass of the Great St. 
Bernard, a feat rivaling Hannibal’s performance, descended 
unexpectedly into Italy in the rear of the Austrian forces, and 
won a new triumph at Marengo. A few months later the 
French general Moreau inflicted a crushing defeat on the 
Austrians at Hohenlinden in Bavaria. 1 These reverses brought 
the Hapsburg emperor to his knees, and he agreed to a peace 
which reaffirmed the provisions of the Treaty of Campo Formio. 2 

Great Britain and France now took steps to end the long war 
between them. The one country was all-powerful on the sea, 
the other on the land; but neither could strike Peace 0 f 
a vital blow at the other. The Peace of Amiens, Amiens, 
which they concluded, proved to be a truce rather 1802 
than a peace. However, it enabled the First Consul to drop 
the sword for a time and take up the less spectacular but more 
enduring work of administration. He soon showed himself 
as great in statecraft as in war. 

One of Napoleon’s most important measures put the local 
government of all France directly under his control. He 
placed a prefect over every departement and a France 
subprefect over every subdivision of a departement. centralized 
Even the mayors of the larger towns and cities owed their 
positions to the First Consul. This arrangement enabled 
Napoleon to make his will felt promptly throughout the length 
and breadth of France. It survived Napoleon’s downfall and 
still continues to be the French system of local government. 

The same desire for unity and precision led Napoleon to 
complete the codification of French law. Before the Revolution 
nearly three hundred different local codes had The law 
existed in France, giving force to Voltaire’s re- codlfied 
mark that a traveler there changed his laws as often as he 

1 Read Campbell’s poem, Hohenlinden. 8 Treaty of LunSville (1801). 


332 


Napoleon Bonaparte 


changed his post-horses. The National Convention began the 
work of replacing this multiplicity of laws — Frankish, Roman, 
feudal, and royal — by a single uniform code. Napoleon 
and the commission of legal experts over whose deliberations 
he presided finished the task after about four years’ labor. 
The Code Napoleon embodied many revolutionary principles, 
such as civil equality, religious toleration, and jury trial, and 
carried these principles into the foreign lands conquered by 
the French. It is still the prevailing law of both France and 
Belgium, while the codes of modern Holland, Italy, and Portu¬ 
gal have taken it as a model. 

Napoleon also healed the religious schism which had divided 
France since the Revolution. Though not himself an adherent 
The Church of any form of Christianity, he felt the necessity 
restored 0 f conciliating the many French Catholics who 
remained faithful to Rome. An agreement, called the Con¬ 
cordat, was now drawn up, providing for the restoration of 
Catholicism as the state religion. Napoleon reserved to 
himself the appointment of bishops and archbishops, and the 
pope gave up all claims to the confiscated property of the 
Church. The Concordat formed a singularly politic measure, 
for by confirming the peasantry in their possession of the 
ecclesiastical lands it bound up their interests with those of 
Napoleon. It continued to regulate the relations between 
France and the Papacy for more than a century. 1 

Nor did Napoleon forget the emigres. A law was soon 
The emigres passed extending amnesty to the nobles who had 
repatriated f rom France. More than forty thousand 

families now returned to their native land. 

A long list might be drawn up of the other measures which 
exhibit Napoleon’s qualities as a statesman. Thus he founded 
Napoleon’s the Bank of France, still one of the leading financial 
institutions of the world. He established a system 
of higher education to take the place of the colleges 
and universities which had been abolished by a decree of the 
National Convention. He planned and partly carried out 

1 From 1802 to 1905. 


other 
measures 


La Madeleine 

Begun by Napoleon in 1806; not completed until 1842. The emperor planned it as a “ hall of fame ” to commemorate his victories, but it 

now serves as a church. The structure has the lines of a Roman temple, with a colonnade of Corinthian pillars. 


The Consulate 


333 






































































































































334 Napoleon Bonaparte 


a vast network of canals and inland waterways, thus improving 
the means of communication and trade throughout France. 
Like the Roman emperors, he constructed a system of military 
highways radiating from the capital city to the remotest de- 
partements , in addition to two wonderful Alpine roads con¬ 
necting France with Italy. Like the Romans, also, he had a 
taste for building, and many of the monuments which make 
Paris so splendid a city belong to the Napoleonic era. 


82 . The First French Empire, 1804 

Napoleon’s victories in war and his policies in peace gained 
for him the support of all Frenchmen except the Jacobins, 
Napoleon w ho would not admit that the Revolution had 

emperor of ended, and the royalists, who wished to restore 
the French gourbon monarchy. When in 1802 the 

people were asked to vote on the question, “ Shall Napoleon 
Bonaparte be consul for life?” the answering “ayes” numbered 
over three and a half millions, the “noes” only a few thousands. 
Another plebiscite in 1804 decided, by an equally large majority, 
that the First Consul should become emperor. Before the 
high altar of Notre Dame Cathedral at Paris and in the presence 
of the pope, the modern Charlemagne placed a golden laurel 
wreath upon his own head and assumed the title of Napoleon I, 
emperor of the French. 

Napoleon also proceeded to erect a monarchy on Italian soil. 
Napoleon, At Milan he crowned himself king, as Charle- 
king of magne had done, with the “Iron Crown” of the 

Italy Lombards. North Italy thus became practically 

an annex of France. 

The emperor-king set up again at the Tuileries the etiquette 
and ceremonial of the Old Regime. Already he had estab- 
The imperial lished the Legion of Honor to reward those who 
g!° r y most industriously served him. Now he created 

a nobility. His relatives and ministers became kings, princes, 
dukes, and counts; his ablest generals became marshals of 
France. “My titles,” Napoleon declared, “are a sort of civic 
crown; one can win them through one’s own efforts.” 


Napoleon at War with Europe 335 

France, intoxicated with the imperial glory, forgot that she 
had come under the rule of one man. What hostile criticism 
Frenchmen might have leveled against Napoleon The imperial 
was stifled by the secret police, who arrested des Potism 
and imprisoned hundreds of persons obnoxious to the emperor. 
The censorship of books and news¬ 
papers prevented any expression 
of public opinion. Many journals 
were suppressed; the remainder 
were allowed to publish only ar¬ 
ticles approved by the government. 

Even the schools and churches 
were made pillars of the new order, 
and Napoleon went so far as to 
prepare a catechism setting forth 
the duty of good Christians to 
love, respect, and obey their em¬ 
peror. In all these ways he estab¬ 
lished a despotism as unqualified 
as that of Louis XIV. 



Cross of the Legion 
of Honor 

Instituted by Napoleon in 1802; 
given to both soldiers and civilians for 
distinguished services to the state. In 
the present order of the French Repub¬ 
lic the symbolical head of the repub¬ 
lic appears in the center, and a laurel 
wreath replaces the imperial crown. 


83. Napoleon at War with Europe, 

1805-1807 

The wars of the French Revolu¬ 
tion, beginning in a conflict between 
democracy and mon- 
archy, gradually be- 
came a means of grati¬ 
fying the French lust for territorial 

expansion. With the advent of Napoleon they appeared still 
more clearly as wars of conquest. The “successor of Charle¬ 
magne, 5 ’ who carried the Roman eagles on his military stand¬ 
ards, dreamed of universal sovereignty. Supreme in France, 
he would also be supreme in Europe. No lasting peace was 
possible with such a man, unless the European nations sub¬ 
mitted tamely to his will. They would not submit, and as 
a result the Continent for ten years was drenched with blood. 




336 


Napoleon Bonaparte 



Austria in the revolutionary wars had been the chief opponent 
of France; in the wars of Napoleon Great Britain became his 
Hostility of most persistent and relentless enemy. That island- 
Great kingdom, which had defeated the grandiose 

Britain to schemes of Philip II and Louis XIV, could never 
Napoleon ^ 7 

consent to the creation of a French empire re¬ 
stricting her trade in the profitable markets of the Continent 

and dominating 
western Europe. 
To preserve the 
European bal¬ 
ance of power 
Great Britain 
formed coalition 
after coalition, 
using her money, 
her ships, and 
her soldiers 
unsparingly, 

and at length successfully, in the effort.,; 

The prime minister of Great Britain during this period was 
William Pitt, the Younger, son of the earl of Chatham. He 
Ministry of became head of the state when only twenty-four, 
St llS i783— shortly after the downfall of Lord North’s ministry. 1 
1801, 1804- As an orator few have rivaled him; as a parlia- 
1806 mentary leader he has no rival. Disdaining the 

bribery which had been employed since the days of Walpole, 
Pitt ruled by the sheer power of his intellect and the fascination 
of his personality. His life was pure and honest in an age 
when immorality and intrigue were all too common; and he 
loved his country with a devotion to which he sacrificed health 
and fortune. 

The Peace of Amiens lasted little over a year. The war 
Trafalgar, between Great Britain and France being then re- 

1805 newed, Napoleon made every preparation to over¬ 

throw “perfidious Albion.” He collected an army and a flotilla 

1 See page 224. 


A Napoleonic Medal 

A medal prepared by Napoleon to be issued at London in honor 
of his expected triumph. It represents Hercules overthrowing a 
merman and bears the legend Frappee a Londres — “Struck in 
London”— 1804. After a cast in the British Museum. 


337 


Napoleon at War with Europe 

of flat-bottomed boats near Boulogne, apparently intending to 
“ jump the ditch,” as he called the Channel, and lead his soldiers 
to London. If this was ever his intention, it became impossible 
of accomplishment after Lord Nelson’s victory off Cape Tra¬ 
falgar, over the combined French and Spanish fleets. Nelson 
received a mortal wound in the action, but he died with the 



The “ Victory ” 

Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalgar. Now moored in Portsmouth Harbor, England. 

knowledge that his country would henceforth remain in un¬ 
disputed control of the seas. “England,” said Pitt, “has 
saved herself by her own energy, and will, I trust, save Europe 
by her example.” 

Meanwhile, Pitt had succeeded in forming the Third Coalition 
against France and Napoleon. Great Britain, Austria, Russia, 
and Sweden were the four allied powers. Before Ulm and 
they could strike a blow, Napoleon suddenly Austeriitz, 
broke up his camp at Boulogne, moved swiftly 
into Germany, captured an entire Austrian army at Ulm, and 
entered Vienna. These successes were followed by the cele¬ 
brated battle of Austeriitz, a masterpiece of strategy, at which 
Napoleon with inferior numbers shattered the Austro-Russian 
forces. With his capital lost, his territory occupied, his armies 
destroyed, the Hapsburg emperor once more consented to 
an ignominious peace. The Venetian lands, which Austria 











33 ^ 


Napoleon Bonaparte 


acquired by the Treaty of Campo Formio, were now added 
to Napoleon’s kingdom of Italy. 1 

Prussia was next to feel the mailed fist of Napoleon. Rely¬ 
ing upon the help of Saxony and Russia, she attempted to 
Jena 1806 stay ^ 1S victorious progress, only to suffer the 
and Fried- loss of two armies in the double battle of Jena, 
land, 1807 Napoleon soon entered Berlin in triumph. Russia 
still remained formidable, until a bad defeat at Friedland 
induced the tsar, Alexander I, to make overtures for peace. 

The two emperors met at Tilsit on the river Niemen, near 
the frontier between Prussia and Russia, and concluded a 
Peace of bargain for the partition of Europe. The tsar 
Tilsit, 1807 agreed to throw over his allies and allow Napoleon 
a free hand in the West. Napoleon permitted the tsar to seize 
Finland from Sweden and promised French aid in expelling 
the Turks from Europe. When, however, the tsar asked for 
the Turkish capital, Napoleon exclaimed, “Constantinople! 
Never! That would be the mastery of the world.” 

No sovereign in modem times was ever so powerful as Napo¬ 
leon after Tilsit. If he had failed on the sea, he had won 
The Napo- complete success on the land, and the triumphs of 
leomc armies ui m> 0 f Austerlitz, of Jena, and of Friedland hid 
from view the disaster of Trafalgar. Napoleon’s victories 
are explained only in part by his mastery of the art of war. 
The emperor inherited the splendid citizen-soldiery of the 
revolutionary era, a whole nation uncjer arms and filled with 
the idea of carrying “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” through¬ 
out Europe. The hired troops of the absolute monarchies, 
on the contrary, had little enthusiasm for their cause. Slight 
wonder that in conflict with them Napoleon’s legions always 
gained the day. 

84. Napoleon’s Reorganization of Europe 

Napoleon at the zenith of his power ruled directly over a 
large part of western Europe. Even before the Peace of Tilsit 
he had added Genoa (the Ligurian Republic) and Piedmont 

1 Treaty of Pressburg (1805). 




















































340 Napoleon Bonaparte 


he would recognize it no longer, the Hapsburg ruler laid down 
the crown and contented himself with the title of emperor 
of Austria. 

Many other European states not actually dependent on 
Napoleon were allied with him. They included Spain, which 

Allied states su bsequently became a dependency, Denmark, 
Norway, the kingdom of Prussia, now reduced 
to about a half of its former size, and the weakened Austrian 
Empire. But Great Britain, mistress of the seas, still held 
out against the master of the Continent. 


85. The Continental System 

The failure of Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition prevented 
him from striking at Great Britain through her possessions in 
Economic the East. His hope of invading her vanished at 
warfare Trafalgar. His efforts to destroy her commerce 

by sending out innumerable privateers to prey upon it were 
foiled when British merchantmen sailed in convoys under the 
protection of ships of war. One alternative remained. If 
British manufacturers could be deprived of their Continental 
markets and British ship-owners and sailors of their carrying 
trade, it might be possible to compel the “nation of shop¬ 
keepers” 1 to make peace with him on his own terms. 

Napoleon’s successes on land enabled him to devise a scheme 
for the strangulation of Great Britain. By two decrees issued 
_ . at Berlin and Milan he placed that country under 

Milan a commercial interdict. British ships and goods 

1806-1807 were to excluded from France and her de¬ 
pendencies, while neutral vessels sailing from 
any British port were to be seized by French warships or 
privateers. 

Napoleon endeavored to enforce these decrees in the French 
Extent of the Empire, the Italian kingdom, the Confederation 
Continental of the Rhine, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. 
System Russia and Prussia agreed to enforce them by the 

terms of the Peace of Tilsit. At one time or another all the 


1 A Napoleonic phrase. 


Revolt of the Nations 


34i 

states of Europe, except Great Britain and Turkey, came into 
the Continental System. 

The British government replied to the Berlin and Milan 
decrees by various Orders in Council, which forbade neutral 
ships from trading with France, her dependencies, The Orders 
or her allies under penalty of capture. As Napo- in Council 
leon sought to exclude Great Britain from Continental markets, 
so that country sought to shut out Napoleon from maritime 
commerce. The sea-power of Great Britain made it possible 
for her to blockade the Continent with some degree of effec¬ 
tiveness. 

Napoleon, on the other hand, could not make the Continental 
System really effective. British merchants always managed 
to smuggle large quantities of goods into the Euro- FaiIure of 
pean countries. Some goods which the French the Conti- 
absolutely required, such as woolens, had to be nental System 
admitted into France under special license. Napoleon clad 
his own armies in British cloth, and his soldiers marched in 
British shoes. Though Great Britain suffered acutely from the 
emperor’s interference with her trade, the Continental nations, 
deprived of needed manufactures and colonial wares, suffered 
still more. The result was to excite great bitterness against 
Napoleon. Nevertheless, he persisted in the attempt to hum¬ 
ble his only rival by this economic warfare; as we shall 
now see, he staked his empire on the success of the Continental 
System. 

86. Revolt of the Nations, 1808-1814 

Napoleon hitherto had been fighting kings, not nations; 
and he had been uniformly victorious. A change came after 
Tilsit. The emperor’s treatment of the con- j^ at j ona i 
quered peoples aroused the utmost hatred for resistance to 
him. They saw their sons dragged away by the Napoleon 
conscription to fight and die in his armies; they paid excessive 
war taxes; above all, they had to endure the high prices re¬ 
sulting from the Continental System. The time was near at 
hand when these burdens could no longer be borne. Hence- 


34 2 Napoleon Bonaparte 

forth our chief interest is with the various nations which one 
after another rose against their common oppressor. France 
in arms made Napoleon; Europe in arms overthrew him. 

The little kingdom of Portugal had been linked to Great 
Britain by close commercial ties for more than a century. 
Napoleon’s When the Portuguese refused to close their ports 

interference to British ships, as Napoleon demanded, he sent 

in Portugal . \ . . T . . , 

and Spain, an army into the country, seized Lisbon, and 

1807-1808 drove the royal family to Brazil. Napoleon then 

proceeded to deprive his friend and ally, Ferdinand VII, of 

the Spanish crown and gave it 
to his brother Joseph. These 
high-handed acts enabled the 
emperor to extend the Conti¬ 
nental System over the Iberian 
peninsula. What he gained 
there was more than offset else¬ 
where. As soon as the Portu¬ 
guese government removed to 
Brazil, it opened that country 
to British trade, and after the 
Spanish monarchy fell, its colo¬ 
nies revolted from the mother 
country and admitted British 
goods. Napoleon thus unwit¬ 
tingly created lucrative mar¬ 
kets in Latin America for his 
rival. 

Furthermore, Napoleon found that he had stirred up a veri¬ 
table hornet’s nest in the peninsula. The Portuguese and 
Revolt of Spanish declined to accept their French overlords 

Portugal and everywhere rose in revolt. Great Britain 

and Spain took a lively interest in the situation and sent an 
army commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, better known by his 
subsequent title of duke of Wellington, to help the insurgents. 
The French were soon driven out of Portugal, nor could they 
maintain themselves securely in Spain. The Peninsular War, 



The Duke of Wellington 

After a painting by Goya in the possession 
of the duke of Leeds. 


Revolt of the Nations 


343 


as it is called, dragged on for years, consuming men and money 
which Napoleon might have employed much more profitably 
elsewhere. 

Encouraged by the Spanish resist¬ 
ance, Austria tried to throw off 
the Napoleonic yoke. The effort 
proved to be premature, The Austrian 
though Austria fighting revolt » 1809 
this time alone gave Napoleon far 
more trouble than when previously 
she had the help of allies. The 
French again occupied Vienna and 
won the hard battle of Wagram. The 
peace which followed cost the Haps- 
burg ruler additional territory and 
a heavy indemnity. It also cost him 
his daughter Maria Louisa, whose 
hand Napoleon demanded in marriage 
after divorcing Josephine. When in water color. Made in 1798 by 
Maria Louisa presented the emperor £ ^isabey. in the possession of 

with a son and heir, the so-called 

“king of Rome,” it must have seemed to him that his dynasty 
was at length firmly fixed on the French throne . 1 

Europe, except in Spain and on the seas, now enjoyed peace 
for two years. It was a brief breathing-spell, while Napoleon 
made ready for a new and much more terrible contest. Until 



Josephine 

After a pencil drawing retouched 


1 The Bonapartes 


Charles Bonaparte m. Letitia Ramolino 


Joseph Napoleon I Louis 
king of Naples, 1806- king of Holland, 

1808; king of Spain, 1806-1810 

1808-1813 | 


Caroline 
m. Murat, 
king of Naples, 
1808-1815 


Napoleon II, Napoleon III 
“king of Rome,” 

d.1832 I 


-1 

Jerome 

king of Westphalia, 
1807-1813 


Napoleon 
d. 1879 




344 Napoleon Bonaparte 

now he had induced Tsar Alexander to adhere to the Con¬ 
tinental System, which pressed with special severity upon 
War with Russia, an agricultural country needing large im- 
Russia, 1812 p 0r ts of British manufactures. The tsar at length 
decided to break his shackles and renew trade relations between 
Russia and Great Britain. This decision left Napoleon no 
choice but go to war with him, 'if the Continental System 
was to be preserved. Rather than give up the hope of humbling 



Great Britain, the emperor, against the advice of his wisest 
counselors, threw down the gage of battle. 

More than half a million men formed the Grand Army with 
which Napoleon began the invasion of Russia. About one- 
The ad- third of the soldiers were French; the rest were 

vance to Germans, Italians, Poles, and other subjects of 

the empire. All western Europe had banded 
tegether under the leadership of one man to overthrow the 
only great state remaining unconquered on the Continent. 
The Russians offered at first little resistance, and the Grand 
Army reached the river Borodino before they turned at bay. 
A murderous conflict followed; the French won; and eight 
days later Napoleon entered the ancient capital of Moscow. 

But to occupy Moscow was not to conquer Russia. The 
French did not dare to follow their enemy farther into the 
wilderness, nor could they remain for the winter in Moscow, 






















Revolt of the Nations 


345 


owing to the scarcity of food for men and horses. The Rus¬ 
sian peasants burned their grain and fodder rather than sup¬ 
ply the French. Moreover, a great fire, perhaps The retreat 
kindled by the Russians themselves, had destroyed from Moscow 
much of the city just as the French entered it. Napoleon 
lingered for a month 
among the ruins of Mos¬ 
cow in the belief that 
Alexander would open ne¬ 
gotiations for peace. B ut 
no message came from 
the tsar, and at last the 
emperor gave orders for 
the retreat. The troops 
had to return by the 
way they had come, 
through a country eaten 
bare of supplies. Famine, 
cold, desertions, and the 
raids of the Cossacks 
thinned their ranks; at 
last only twenty thou¬ 
sand fugitives recrossed 

the Niemen. The Grand Army had ceased to exist . 1 

This disaster, unparalleled in military annals, thrilled Prussia 
with hopes of freedom. Thanks to the labors of Baron vom 
Stein, Chancellor Hardenberg, and other states- The 
men, it was a new Prussia which confronted Prussian 
Napoleon. Serfdom had been declared illegal, revolt » 1813 
all occupations and professions had been opened to noble, 
commoner, and peasant alike, a state system of both -elemen¬ 
tary and secondary education had been established, and the 
army had been reorganized on the basis of military service for 
all classes. These reforms gave to Prussia many of the advan¬ 
tages of the French Revolution and aroused a patriotic spirit 
which united the entire nation in a common love of country. 

1 Tolstoy’s War and Peace deals with Napoleon’s campaigns in Russia. 



Baron vom Stein 





346 Napoleon Bonaparte 

Prussia now joined forces with Russia and began the War of 
Liberation. 

Yet so vast were Napoleon’s resources that he was soon able 
to recruit a new army and take the offensive in Germany. 
Battle of He gained fresh victories, but could not follow 

Leipzig, them up because of the lack of cavalry. Austria 

1813 

then threw in her lot with the allies. Outnum¬ 
bered and outmaneuvered, Napoleon fell back on Leipzig, and 

there in a three days’ “Battle 
of the Nations” — a battle in 
which every European people 
except the Turks was represented 
— suffered a sanguinary defeat. 
All Germany now turned against 
him, and he withdrew his shat¬ 
tered troops across the Rhine. 

The allies would have made 
peace with Napoleon, had he 

Abdication been willin g to g ive 
of Napoleon, up his claims to the 

1814 overlordship of Eu¬ 

rope. They offered him the 
Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, 
and the Atlantic as the French 
boundaries, but he refused to 
accept the territorial limits that 
would have satisfied the ambi¬ 
tions of Louis XIV. Napoleon’s 
campaigns during the early months of 1814 against three armies, 
each one larger than his own, are justly celebrated; they 
postponed but did not prevent his overthrow. After Paris 
surrendered, the emperor gave up the useless struggle and 
signed an act of abdication renouncing for himself and for 
his heirs the thrones of France and Italy. 1 

1 Read Ifyron’s Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, written in 1814, after the emperor’s 
abdication. 








Downfall of Napoleon 


347 


87. Downfall of Napoleon, 1814-1815 

The allies treated Napoleon with marked consideration. 
They allowed him to retain the title of emperor and assigned 
him the island of Elba as a possession. He spent Napoleon 
ten months in this tiny principality and ruled at Elba 
it with all his accustomed energy, meanwhile keeping a watchful 
eye upon the course of events in France. 

Suddenly Europe heard with amazement that Napoleon had 
returned to France and that Louis XVIII, 1 his Bourbon suc¬ 
cessor on the throne, was once more an exile/ The 
The enthusiastic welcome which greeted the “^® dred 
emperor, a^ he advanced to Paris with only a March-June, 
small bodyguard, bore witness at once to the 1815 
magnetism of his personality and to the unpopularity of the 
Bourbons. In a manifesto to the French people he declared 
that henceforth he would renounce war and conquest and would 
govern as a constitutional sovereign. The allies, however, 
refused to accept the restoration of one whom they very prop¬ 
erly described as the “enemy and destroyer of the world’s 
peace.” The four great powers, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, 
and Russia, proclaimed Napoleon an outlaw and set their 
armies in motion toward France. 

The allied armies lay in two groups behind the Sambre 
River. A mixed force of British, Belgians, Dutch, and Ger¬ 
mans, under the duke of Wellington, covered of 

Brussels, and the Prussians, under Bliicher, held Waterloo, 
a position farther east. ' Napoleon hoped to 18 > 
overcome them separately before they could con¬ 
centrate their overwhelming numbers. He did beat Bliicher 
at Ligny, compelling the Prussian general to retreat north¬ 
ward to Wavre. Bliicher’s defeat made it necessary for Wel¬ 
lington to fall back on a strong defensive position near Waterloo, 
twelve miles south of Brussels. Here, all through a hot Sunday 
in June, Napoleon hurled his infantry and cavalry in fierce 

1 See page 313 and note i. The young son of Louis XVI (“Louis XVII”) is 
supposed to have died in a revolutionary prison in 1795 - 


348 


Napoleon Bonaparte 


but ineffectual attacks against the “Iron Duke’s” lines. The 
timely arrival of the Prussians from Wavre — Napoleon sup¬ 
posed that they had retreated toward Namur — compelled 
the French to fight a double battle; their situation soon became 

desperate; and 
even a last charge 
of the Old Guard 
failed to restore 
the day. Repulse 
soon turned into 
a rout, and Napo¬ 
leon’s splendid 
army, broke up 
into a mob of 
fugitives. The 
emperor himself 
escaped with dif¬ 
ficulty to Paris. 1 

Napoleon again 
abdicated and to 
avoid the Prus¬ 
sians (who had 

orders to take him dead or alive) threw himself upon 
The the generosity of the British government. Then 

Napoleonic followed exile to the desolate rock of St. Helena, 
legend where the fallen emperor lived for six years, with¬ 
out wife or child, but surrounded by a few intimate friends to 
whom he dictated his memoirs. After his death, at the early 
age of fifty-two, France forgot the sufferings he had caused her 
and remembered only his glory. Poets, painters, and singers 
created out of the “Little Corporal” a purely legendary figure. 
The world-despot appeared as the heir of the Revolution, a 
crusader for liberty, a foe of tyrants; and in this guise he 
found his way irresistibly to the hearts of the French people. 

1 Victor Hugo has a famous though inaccurate description of the battle in Les 
Miserables (part ii, book i). See also Byron’s lines, “The Eve of Waterloo,” in 
Childe Harold (canto iii, stanzas 21-28). 



-Bliicher’s retreat 

-Napoleon’s advance^ 

Ney's advance | 


Theater of the Waterloo Campaign 





349 


The Napoleonic Era 

After Napoleon’s first abdication in 1814 the victorious 
allies concluded with France a peace which stripped her of all 
her conquests. After the emperor’s second ab- Treaties of 
dication in 1815 the allied powers deemed it neces- Paris 
sary to impose still more humiliating conditions of peace. 
Though France was not dismembered, that country was reduced 
to substantially her old boundaries before the Revolution. 1 
Furthermore, she had to restore all the works of art which 
Napoleon had pilfered from other countries, to pay an in¬ 
demnity of seven hundred million francs, and for five years to 
support a foreign army in her chief fortresses. It is noteworthy, 
however, that the desire of Prussia for the French provinces 
of Alsace and Lorraine was not at this time gratified. 

88. The Napoleonic Era 

It remains to sum up the work of Napoleon. In general, 
he continued the work of the Revolution. If Napoleon 
he destroyed the republic, he did not restore the and France 
Old Regime. His empire rested upon the Revolutionary prin¬ 
ciples of “ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” 

Despot though Napoleon was, his plebiscites 2 show that he 
paid at least lip homage to the new idea of popular sovereignty, 
of government resting upon the consent of the « Liberty” 
governed. It is certain that during both the under 
consulate and the empire he enjoyed the support Napoleon 
of the great majority of Frenchmen. On the other hand, he 
did not respect all the “rights of man” which the revolutionists 
had proclaimed with such enthusiasm. Freedom of thought 
and freedom of worship prevailed under Napoleon, but the 
emperor allowed neither free speech nor a free press. 

Equality before the law and equality of opportunity Napoleon 
fully recognized. The “career open to talents” formed for him 
the heart and core of democracy. Citizens of all « Equality ” 
ranks might freely compete for offices, honors, under 
wealth, and other distinctions. Under such a Napoleon 
system there would still be rich and poor, learned and ignorant, 

1 See the map facing page 322. 2 See pages 330 and 334. 


35° Napoleon Bonaparte 



industrious and shiftless, but each one would enjoy the fullest 
opportunity for self-development and advancement. Most 
Frenchmen were content to accept Napoleon’s rule largely 

because he in¬ 


sisted upon equal 
rights for all men. 

The patriotic 
and national sen- 


“Frater- timents 
nity” under evoked 
Napoleon during 
the Revolution 
only became 
stronger when the 
republic passed 
into the empire. 
Those tremen¬ 
dous campaigns 
which carried the 
Napoleonic ar¬ 
mies from Paris 
to Moscow and 
from Berlin and 
Warsaw to Naples 
and Madrid 
dazzled the eyes 
of most French¬ 
men. They wil¬ 
lingly exchanged 
the tricolor for 
the imperial 
eagles and, as we 

have just seen, they supported Napoleon to the last. After 
Waterloo there lingered many memories of victorious battles 
in foreign lands, of conquered countries, plundered cities, 
subjected peoples. The French, in consequence, developed a 
spirit of overweening pride and a belief in their natural superi- 


The Tomb of Napoleon 

In 1840 Napoleon’s body was removed from St. Helena, 
taken with great pomp to Paris, and deposited in a sarcoph¬ 
agus of red Finland granite under the gilded dome of the 
Hotel des Invalides. Twelve colossal statues, representing the 
chief victories of Napoleon, surround the tomb, and between 
the figures are battleflags captured at Austerlitz. Two of the 
emperor’s brothers are buried in adjoining chapels. 






























35i 


The Napoleonic Era 

ority which only disappeared after the Franco-German War, 
several generations later. Such was the fruit of militarism. 

Napoleon was an agent of the Revolution, not only in France, 
but in all the lands subject to French influence. Wherever 
the Code Napoleon went, the forms of feudalism Napoleon 
and serfdom, class privileges, and social inequalities and Eur °pe 
vanished. The trained officials sent out by the emperor re¬ 
formed finances, made roads, built bridges, improved harbors, 
encouraged trade, fostered education. For the first time the 
inhabitants of the Netherlands, most of the German states, 
Switzerland, Italy, and Spain discovered what it meant to 
have an efficient government. Could Napoleon’s activity 
have ended here, he would have earned the unmixed gratitude 
of mankind. As it was, even the blessings of his rule could not 
reconcile the subject nations to his despotism. They rose 
against it, and their successful struggle for independence ushered 
in a new period of European history. 

Studies 

i. Locate on the map all the Napoleonic battle-fields mentioned in this chapter. 
2. Write a character sketch (400 words) of Napoleon Bonaparte, based partly on 
the statements in the text and partly on your outside reading. 3. How did the First 
Consul, to use his own words, “close” the French Revolution and “consolidate” its 
results? 4. Why was Napoleon styled by the lawyers a new Justinian and by the 
clergy a new Constantine? 5. Is it correct to call Napoleon an “enlightened” 
despot? Is it incorrect to call him a “usurper”? 6. Compare as to results the 
battle of Trafalgar with the destruction of the Spanish Armada. 7. Show that the 
political weakness of central Europe in Napoleon’s day contributed to his success as 
a conqueror. 8. How did the Continental System help to bring about the downfall 
of Napoleon? 9. How did the physical features of Spain facilitate the Spanish 
resistance to Napoleon? 10. Why is Waterloo included among the world’s “decisive 
battles”? Would it have been equally decisive if Napoleon, and not Wellington, 
had won? n. It has been said of Napoleon that “he was as great as a man can 
be without virtue.” Does this seem to be a fair judgment? 12. Account for the 
comparatively mild treatment of France by the allies, after Napoleon’s downfall. 


CHAPTER XII 


RECONSTRUCTION AND REACTION, 1815-1830 
89. The Congress of Vienna 

The close of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era found 
Europe in confusion. The French Revolution had destroyed 
Purpose of the Old Regime in France, and Napoleon Bona- 
the congress p ar te had given new rulers or new boundaries 
to almost every Continental state. While Napoleon was 
still at Elba, a great international congress met at Vienna 
to reorganize the European state-system and remake the 
European map. The powers represented were Great Britain, 
Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, and 
France. 

The congress formed a brilliant assemblage of emperors, 
kings, princes of every rank, and titled diplomats. A single 
Membership drawing room sometimes held Alexander I, tsar 
of the of Russia; Francis I, emperor of Austria; Fred- 

congress erick William III, king of Prussia; the duke of 
Wellington, the German patriot Stein, the Austrian minister 
Metternich, and the French representative Talleyrand. The 
final decision as to all questions obviously lay with the four 
powers whose alliance had overthrown Napoleon, until Talley¬ 
rand’s skillful management secured the admission of France 
to their councils as a fifth great power. When the wheels of 
diplomacy had been well oiled by banquets, balls, and other 
festivities, the monarchs and their advisers undertook the 
reconstruction of Europe. 

The work of the congress was done privately by committees 
of plenipotentiaries, who made over certain earlier agreements 
of the victorious allies into treaties. The latter were then 
combined (June, 1815) into a single document called the Final 
Act of the Congress of Vienna. It is quite inaccurate, however, 

352 


Restoration of the Dynasties 353 

to ascribe to the Vienna Congress responsibility for all the 
settlements reached by the allies in 1814-1815. 

90. Restoration of the Dynasties 

The allies who dictated the settlements were opposed, 
naturally enough, to all the democratic or liberal sentiments 
which had been awakened in Europe since 1789. attitude 
The French Revolution appeared to them as toward 
merely a revolt against authority, a revolt which democracy 
had overturned the social order, destroyed property, sacrificed 
countless human lives, and introduced confusion everywhere. 
Blind to the true significance 
of the demand for liberty 
and equality, they sought 
to bring back the Old Regime 
of absolutism, privilege, and 
divine right. Their ideal was 
Europe before 1789. 

One feature of the settle¬ 
ments was the restoration 
of old dynas- “Legiti- 
ties. Spokesmen macy ” 
for the allies asserted the 
right of European mon- 
archs to govern their former 
subjects, irrespective of the 
latter’s wishes or of the 
claims of the rulers whom p in old age . 

Napoleon had established. 

Talleyrand dignified this principle under the name of 
“legitimacy.” 

Louis XVIII, 1 who now went back to France, was an old 
gentleman of sixty, and so fat and gouty that he could not 
sit a horse. This cool, cautious Bourbon wartted Louis xvill 
to enjoy his power in peace; like Charles II of in France 
England, he had no desire to set out on his travels again. He 

1 See page 347 and note i. 



354 


Reconstruction and Reaction 


realized that to most Frenchmen absolutism had become in¬ 
tolerable and that the main results of the revolutionary and 
Napoleonic era must be preserved. Accordingly, Louis XVIII 
retained such institutions as the Code, the Concordat, the 
Bank of France, and the imperial nobility, and renewed a 
charter or constitution, which he had granted in 1814. It 
guaranteed freedom of the press, religious toleration, and the 
inviolability of sales of land made during the Revolution. 
The restoration of the Bourbon monarchy did not mean the 
restoration of the Old Regime in France. 

Ferdinand VII, 1 another king whom Napoleon had de¬ 
throned, went back to Spain. This Spanish Bourbon had no 
Ferdinand sooner recovered his crown than he began to 
VII m Spam swe ep away all traces of revolutionary ideas and 
institutions introduced by the French. A constitution, modeled 
upon that of France, which the Spaniards had framed in 1812, 
was suppressed, because it denied divine right and asserted the 
sovereignty of the people. The old privileges of the clergy 

and nobility were reaffirmed. The censorship of books and 

newspapers, the prohibition of public meetings, and the im¬ 
prisonment or banishment of all those suspected of liberal 
opinions showed clearly the reactionary character of the new 
government. 

Still other dispossessed monarchs profited by the principle 
of “legitimacy.” The king of Sardinia regained Nice, Savoy, 
Restorations and Piedmont on the mainland, together with 

in Italy the former republic of Genoa as an additional 

protection against France. “Republics are no longer fashion¬ 
able,” said the tsar to a Genoese deputation which had objected 
to this arbitrary arrangement. Sicily and Naples were again 
combined to form the kingdom of the Two Sicilies under a 
Bourbon ruler. The pope, whom Napoleon had deprived of 
temporal sovereignty, recovered the States of the Church. 
All these resto&d princes governed without constitutions or 
parliaments. They used their absolute power to get rid of 
every trace of the revolutionary era, even uprooting French 
1 See page 342. 


THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA, 1814-1815 

The ten figures in the foreground are, in order: Wellington, Hardenberg (seated), Lowenhjelm, Noailles, Metternich, Nesselrode, Palraella 

(seated), Castlereagh (seated), Talleyrand (seated), and Stackelberg (seated). 






















PRINCE METTERNICH 

After the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 

In the possession of Prince Richard Metternicb-Winneburg. 




Territorial Readjustments 355 

plants in the botanical gardens and abolishing vaccination 
and gas street lamps as nefarious French innovations. The 
restorations in Italy, as in Spain, spelled reaction. 

91. Territorial Readjustments 

As we have already learned, the fraternal or patriotic feel¬ 
ings so deeply stirred during the revolutionary and Napoleonic 
era put renewed emphasis on the rights of nation- Attitude 
alities. Patriots in one country after another toward 
boldly declared that no nation, however small or natlonallsm 
weak, should be governed by foreigners. Every nation, on 
the contrary, ought to be free to choose its own form of govern¬ 
ment and manage its own affairs. To such “submerged 
nationalities” as the Belgians, Bohemians, Poles, and Magyars 
this principle held out the hope of independence; to the 
Italians and the Germans it held out the hope of unification. 
Like the “enlightened despots,” however, the allied rulers 
and diplomats willfully disregarded all national aspirations. 
They treated the European peoples as so many pawns in the 
game of diplomacy. 

In general, the territorial readjustments made by the treaties 
were intended to compensate the great powers for their exertions 
against Napoleon. Land hunger thus influenced “Compensa- 
the settlements of 1814-15, as it had influenced tlons ” 
the treaties of Utrecht and Westphalia. The principle 
of “compensations,” however, had to be modified by the 
assumed necessity of strengthening the neighbors of France 
against future aggression on the part of that country. The 
total result was a new map of Europe. 

The oldest and most successful of Napoleon’s enemies, Great 
Britain, did not desire Continental territories. She received 
colonial possessions as payment, including Helgo- Great 
land in the North Sea and Malta and the Ionian Bntain 
Islands in the Mediterranean. Great Britain also retained the 
former Dutch colonies of Ceylon, Cape Colony, and Guiana, 
which had been appropriated during the Napoleonic wars. 1 

1 A part of Guiana (Surinam) was kept by the Dutch. 


35 6 


Reconstruction and Reaction 


Austria 


A new state arose across the Channel. In order to com¬ 
pensate the Dutch for the loss of their possessions overseas 
Kingdom of an d at the same time to set up a strong bulwark 
the Nether- against France, the powers united the Austrian 
Netherlands — modern Belgium — with Holland. 
The kingdom of the Netherlands, as thus established, was 
under the rule of the house of Orange. This arbitrary union 
of Belgians and Dutch soon led to acute friction between the 
two peoples. 

As compensation for the cession of the Austrian Netherlands, 
Austria secured Lombardy and Venetia, the two richest prov¬ 
inces in Italy. She also received the Illyrian 
lands along the Adriatic coast, part of Poland 
(Galicia), and all the other territory taken from her by Napo¬ 
leon. Austria was now a state geographically compact, center¬ 
ing round the middle Danube and controlling North Italy 
and the northern Adriatic. 

The Prussian kingdom, whose limits had been so reduced 
by Napoleon, recovered part of Poland (Posen), took over 
from Sweden what remained of western Pomer¬ 
ania, and absorbed about half of Saxony, a state 
which had been one of Napoleon’s allies. Prussia also annexed 
much additional territory on the lower Rhine. The inhabitants 
of the Rhine provinces had little enough affinity with the 
Prussians, and after twenty years’ union with France did not 
willingly change their nationality. In spite of these terri¬ 
torial acquisitions, Prussia remained almost as unformed as 
in the eighteenth century, with her dominions scattered through¬ 
out Germany. 

Another great power widened its boundaries at this time. 
Russia kept Finland, taken from Sweden in 1809, and Bes¬ 
sarabia, wrested from Turkey in 1812. In addi¬ 
tion, Russia obtained the lion’s share of Napo¬ 
leon’s Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Tsar Alexander proceeded to 
set up a kingdom of Poland, with himself as king. 

For the cession of western Pomerania to Prussia and of 
Finland to Russia, Sweden found compensation in taking 


Prussia 


Russia 












































































Territorial Readjustments 357 

Norway from Denmark. The only excuse for this action was 
the former alliance of the Danes with Napoleon, gweden 
an alliance which had been practically forced 
upon them. The Norwegians themselves resented the new 
arrangement, preferring a Danish to a Swedish ruler. Though 
compelled to submit, they succeeded in keeping their own 
government, constitution, and laws. Their union with the 
Swedes lasted just ninety years. 

The Swiss Confederation, or Switzerland, whose independence 
had been recognized at the Peace of Westphalia, received 
its final form at the Congress of Vienna. Three _ . , . 

° . . . Switzerland 

new cantons were added to the nineteen in existence 
before 1815. The great powers also signed a treaty promising 
never to declare war against Switzerland or to send troops 
across the Swiss borders. The little Alpine republic became 
in this way a neutral buffer state in the heart of Europe. 

The settlement of Vienna left Italy a mosaic of nine states. 1 
Of these, Sardinia formed an independent kingdom. Lom¬ 
bardy and Venetia were Austrian provinces. Disunion of 
Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and Lucca were duchies, Italy in 1815 
all but the last under rulers belonging to the Hapsburg family. 
Austrian influence also prevailed in the States of the Church 
and in the Two Sicilies. Thus Austria, a foreign power, fixed 
its grip upon the Italian peninsula. Italy, in Metternich’s 
contemptuous phrase, was only “a geographical expression.” 

Germany after the settlement of Vienna included thirty- 
eight states and free cities, of which the most extensive were 
the Austrian Empire and the five kingdoms of Disunion of 
Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirtemberg, and Han- Germany in 
over. Stein and his fellow-patriots wished to 
bring them all into a strongly knit union. This proposal 
encountered the opposition of Metternich, who feared that a 
united Germany would not serve Austrian interests. Metter¬ 
nich found support among the German rulers themselves, not 
one of whom would surrender any particle of his authority. 
The outcome was the creation of the Germanic Confederation, 
1 Eleven, if Monaco and San Marino be included. See the map on page 402. 


358 


Reconstruction and Reaction 


a loose association of sovereign princes with a Diet or assembly 
presided over by a representative of the Austrian emperor. 1 

The rulers and diplomats did not make a permanent settle¬ 
ment of the affairs of Europe. They failed to satisfy either 
the democratic or national aspirations of European peoples 
Europe after and so left many troublesome problems unsolved. 
1815 The political history of the last century is, in 

fact, largely concerned with the movements toward democracy 
and nationalism and the consequent changes of territory and 
government. Nevertheless, rulers and diplomats deserve 
credit for real accomplishments. They reconciled the claims 
and desires of the chief states, or at least of the ruling classes. 
There was now a new alignment of states, with Great Britain 
and France in the west, Austria and Prussia in the center, 
and in the east Russia. No one of these great states was 
strong enough to dominate the others. The outbreak of an¬ 
other international war was thus postponed for the next forty 
years. Europe entered on a period of profound peace, during 
which, as we shall learn subsequently, man made rapid pro¬ 
gress in almost every field of culture. 

92 . “ Metternichismus ” 

Austria, now the leading Continental state, consisted of 
more than a score of territories inhabited by uncongenial 
Reactionary Germans, Magyars, Slavs, Rumanians, and 
Austria Italians. To keep them united under a single 

scepter, the Hapsburgs deliberately repressed all agitation 
for independence or self-government. The Hapsburgs felt it 
equally necessary to discourage every popular movement, 
which, starting in Italy or Germany, might spread like an 
infection to their own dominions. “My realm,” confessed the 
emperor Francis I, “is like a worm-eaten house; if a part of it 
is removed, one cannot tell how much will fall.” Force of 
circumstances thus placed Austria at the forefront of the 
reaction against democracy. 

1 Both the kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire contained territories 
not included in the confederation. See the map facing page 406. 


“ Metternichismus ” 


359 


The spirit of reactionary Austria seemed incarnate in Prince 

Clemens Metternich. He belonged to an old and distinguished 

family from the Rhinelands, entered the diplo- 

. . . 11 * i __ i . Metternich 

matic service of Austria, and during the Napoleonic 

era rose to be the chief representative of the Hapsburg emperor 
at Paris. An aristocrat to his finger-tips, polished, courtly, 
tactful, clever, this man soon became the real head of the 
Austrian government and the most influential diplomat in 
Europe. To the rule of Napoleon succeeded the rule of Metter¬ 
nich. The German word Metternichismus has been coined to 
express the ideas which he championed and the measures which 
he enforced. 

Metternich regarded absolutism and divine right as the 
pillars of stable government. Democracy, he declared, could 
only “ change daylight into darkest night.” All The Metter- 
demands for constitutions, parliaments, and repre- mch s y stem 
sentative institutions must consequently be opposed to the 
uttermost. In order to stamp out the “disease of liberalism,” 
let spies and secret police be multiplied, press and pulpit kept 
under gag-laws, the universities sharply watched for dangerous 
teachings, and all agitators exiled, imprisoned, or executed. 
Such measures of repression seemed quite feasible at a time 
when the majority of European peoples were ignorant peasants, 
far removed from public life. Democratic ideas could only 
find followers among the workingmen of the cities and in the 
educated bourgeoisie , both very small and defenseless when 
confronted by the powerful forces at the disposal of govern¬ 
ments. Metternich, in fact, found little difficulty in establish¬ 
ing his system in Austria. He then proceeded to establish it 
in the other states of the Germanic Confederation. 

It had seemed for a time that the successful struggle against 
Napoleon would be followed by the setting up of free political 
institutions throughout Germany. Frederick Wil- Liberalism in 
liam III, the Prussian king, promised his loyal German y 
and patriotic subjects a charter, something like that accorded 
by Louis XVIII to the French. The grand duke of Saxe- 
Weimar actually granted a written constitution, establishing 


360 


Reconstruction and Reaction 


a representative assembly and guaranteeing the equality of 
all classes before the law. That the liberal movement did not 
proceed further was largely due to Metternich, who exerted 
the same reactionary influence over Frederick William III 
and the other German princes as over his imperial master, 
Francis I. 

German liberalism at this time centered in the universities, 
where students and teachers had together formed numerous 
The Bur- secret societies — Burschenschaften. The members 
schenschaf- adopted a flag of black, red, and gold, the colors 
of the volunteers during the War of Liberation. 
Their motto was “Honor, Liberty, Fatherland”; their purpose, 
agitation for German unity and freedom. 

In 1817, the fourth anniversary of the battle of Leipzig and 
the three-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Luther’s 
The Wart- theses against indulgences, a celebration by the 
burg Festival j Burschenschaften took place in Saxe-Weimar. The 
place chosen was the castle of the Wartburg, so memorable in 
Reformation history. On the evening of the festival some of 
the more radical spirits gathered around a bonfire and, in 
imitation of Luther’s burning of the papal bull, threw into the 
flames certain reactionary books, together with such symbols 
of military tyranny as an officer’s baton and a private soldier’s 
pigtail. Metternich regarded these harmless proceedings as 
the beginning of a revolution. His fears seemed justified when 
a German spy in the secret pay of Russia was assassinated 
by a student patriot, and an attempt was made on the life 
of a government official in Nassau. 

Such outbreaks gave Metternich his cue. Having persuaded 
the Austrian and Prussian monarchs to summon a conference of 
Carlsbad the ru ^ ers at Carlsbad, he secured their approval 

Decrees, of a series of measures intended to quell the spirit 

of revolt. The Carlsbad Decrees, as afterwards 
ratified by the Diet of the confederation, dissolved the Burschen¬ 
schaften and prohibited the display of its colors, even in the 
popular combination of black coats, red waistcoats, and yellow 
straw hats. Both professors and students were to be expelled 


The Concert of Europe 361 

from the universities for unseemly political activity. A rigid 
press censorship was set up to examine every newspaper, 
pamphlet, or book before publication and thus to stifle the 
free expression of opinion. The frightened princes also estab¬ 
lished a permanent commission for the purpose of keeping 
track of “revolutionary plots and demagogic associations.” 

The Carlsbad Decrees signalized the triumph of Melter- 
nichismus in Germany. Outside of Bavaria, Baden, Wurtem- 
berg, and a few other German states, whose rulers get-back to 
conceded constitutions, reaction had full swing. German 
This was notably the case in Prussia, where the llberalism 
weak and timorous Frederick William III docilely followed 
Austrian leadership. He never kept his promise of a consti¬ 
tution, but began instead a persecution of all liberal thinkers, 
even of the heroes of the War of Liberation. Prussia thus 
early appeared as a stronghold of conservatism. 

93 . The Concert of Europe 

The states whose coalitions overthrew Napoleon became in 
1815 the arbiters of Europe. Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, 
and Russia renewed their alliance, in order to Formation of 
preserve the dynastic and territorial arrangements ^ Concert 
made by the Congress of Vienna. In 1818 France under 
Louis XVIII was admitted into the sacred circle of the alliance. 
The French, during three years’ probation, had fulfilled the 
obligations imposed upon them by the allies after Waterloo 
and, as far as appearances went, had extinguished forever their 
revolutionary fires. These five great powers, as long as they 
worked in harmony, could enforce their will on all the smaller 
states. They formed, in effect, a European Concert. 

The agreements establishing the Concert pledged its members 
to the maintenance of “public peace, the tranquillity of states, 
the inviolability of possessions, and the faith of Defects of 
treaties.” High sounding words! Europe in 1815 the Concert 
was not ready for a genuine international league to safeguard 
the rights of each country, whether big or little. The defects 
of the Concert were obvious. First, it did not extend to Tur- 


362 


Reconstruction and Reaction 


key in Europe, whose Christian inhabitants languished under 
the tyranny of the Sultan. Second, it was dynastic rather 
than popular in character — a union of sovereigns instead of 
peoples. Of the five leading states, all but Great Britain were 
divine-right monarchies. Third, it lacked effective machinery 
for reconciling the contrary interests, ambitions, and jealousies 
of the members. The Concert, in short, formed only a distant 
approach to the ideal of a confederated Europe, of a common¬ 
wealth of nations. 

Metternich, the leading spirit in the formation of the Concert 
of Europe, found in it the means of extending his system from 
Interna- the German states to the rest of the Continent, 
tionai con- One of the clauses of the treaty of alliance between 
the powers had provided that they should hold 
congresses from time to time for the consideration of the meas¬ 
ures “most salutary for the repose and prosperity of nations 
and for the peace of Europe. 5 ’ Four such congresses 1 were 
convoked by Metternich, whose diplomatic genius turned them 
into agencies of reaction. 

How soon the Concert degenerated from a high court of 
justice for all peoples into a mere league for the protection 
Protocol of princes against revolution was seen at the 

Troppau, Congress of Troppau. Here the sovereigns of 
Austria, Prussia, and Russia took it upon them¬ 
selves to act as the policemen of Europe. The protocol, or 
declaration, signed by them at this time ran as follows: “States 
which have undergone a change of government due to revo¬ 
lution, the results of which threaten other states, ipso facto 
cease to be members of the European alliance, and remain 
excluded from it until their situation gives guarantees for 
legal order and stability. If, owing to such alterations, im¬ 
mediate danger threatens other states, the powers bind them¬ 
selves, by peaceful means, or if need be by arms, to bring back 
the guilty state into the bosom of the Great Alliance.” 

The Protocol of Troppau announced a doctrine new to inter¬ 
national law. The European autocrats now boldly asserted 

1 Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), Troppau (1820), Laibach (1821), and Verona (1822). 


The Concert of Europe 363 

their right, and even their duty, to intervene in the affairs 
of any country for the suppression of democratic Armed 
or national movements. France did not sign this intervention 
outrageous document. Neither did Great Britain. Her states¬ 
men, members of a government which dated from the “Glorious 
Revolution” of 1688, had now begun to comprehend the real 
character of the Concert as directed by Metternich, and to see 
in it a deadly menace to the liberties of Europe. Undaunted 
by British protests, however, the three eastern powers prepared 
for armed intervention. 

1820 was a year of revolutions. A widespread uprising in 
Spain against Ferdinand VII forced that tyrannical monarch 
to restore the constitution of 1812 and to convene Revolutions 
a liberal parliament. An insurrection in Portugal of 1820 
overthrew the regency which had governed there since the 
removal of the royal family to Brazil during the Napoleonic 
era. 1 John VI, then reigning in Brazil, returned to Portugal 
and promised to rule as a constitutional sovereign. Encour¬ 
aged by these successes, the people of Naples (a part of the 
kingdom of the Two Sicilies) compelled their Bourbon prince 
to grant a constitution. 

Metternichismus did not long remain on the defensive. An 
Austrian army quickly occupied Naples and restored “order? 
and absolutism. In the reaction which followed _ , .. 

Revolution 

the liberal leaders were hurried to the dungeon suppressed 
and the scaffold. Almost at the same time a 

loZl 

revolt in the Sardinian kingdom (Piedmont) 
collapsed under the pressure of eighty thousand Austrian 
bayonets. Metternich felt well satisfied with his work. “I 
see the dawn of a better day,” he wrote. “Heaven seems to 
will it that the world shall not be lost.” 

Armed intervention soon registered another triumph. The 
three eastern powers commissioned France to act R evo i ut i 0 n 
as their agent to subdue the turbulent Spaniards, suppressed^ 
Great Britain protested vigorously against this inS P ain » 18 3 
action and asserted the right of every people to determine 
1 See page 342. 


3 6 4 


Reconstruction and Reaction 


Breaches in 
the Euro¬ 
pean Concert 


its own form of government. Her protests were unheeded. 
French troops crossed the Pyrenees and put Ferdinand once 
more on his autocratic throne. The king then proceeded to 
inaugurate a reign of terror, exiling, imprisoning, and execut¬ 
ing liberals by the thousands. It is a sorry chapter in Spanish 
history. 

The sovereigns were now ready to crusade against freedom 
in Spain’s American colonies, which had revolted against the 

mother land. Both Great 
Britain and the 
United States 
felt thoroughly 
alarmed at the prospect of 
European interference in the 
affairs of the New World. 
George Canning, the British 
foreign minister, made it clear 
to the governments of France, 
Austria, Prussia, and Russia 
that as long as Great Britain 
controlled the seas no country 
other than Spain should ac¬ 
quire the colonies either by 
cession or by conquest. Can¬ 
ning’s policy received the em¬ 
phatic support of President 
Monroe in his message to Congress (1823), in which he said: 
“We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations 
existing between the United States and those powers, to declare 
that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend 
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous 
to our peace and safety.” 1 Shortly afterwards both the 
United States and Great Britain recognized the independence 
of the Spanish-American republics. A second breach in the 
European Concert opened when Russia, absolutist but ortho¬ 
dox, supported a rebellion of the Greeks against their Turkish 
1 The so-called Monroe Doctrine. 



George Canning 

After a painting by John Hoppner in the 
possession of Lord Rosebery. 


The Concert of Europe 365, 

oppressors. It remained, however, for another democratic 
revolution in France to deal the most effective blow against 
Metternich and all his works. 

Studies 

1. “The nineteenth century is precisely the history of the work which the French 
Revolution left.” Comment on this statement. 2. Mention some instances of 
the disregard of nationalism by the treaties of 1814-15. 3. Why was the neutrality 
of Switzerland guaranteed by the great powers in 18x5 ? Has Swiss neutrality 
been violated since this time? 4. May any excuses be offered for the “short¬ 
comings” of the Congress of Vienna? 5. “The name of Metternich has become 
a synonym for reaction and conservatism.” Explain this statement. 6. What 
justification can be given for Metternichismus? 7. To what extent was the Concert 
of Europe, as established in 1815-1818, a League for Peace? 8. Why has the 
Concert been called a “mutual insurance society of sovereigns”? 9. Why may the 
period between 1815 and 1822 be called the era of the congresses? 10. What is 
the meaning of Canning’s remark, “I called the New World into existence to redress 
the balance of the Old”? 



No. 10, Downing Street 

The larger of the two houses here shown is the official 
residence of the British prime minister. It faces a little street 
opening into Whitehall and near the Parliament buildings. 


























CHAPTER XIII 


THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN EUROPE, 
1830-1848 

94. Modern Democracy 

The idea of democracy, so emphasized by the American 
and French revolutions, has been a potent influence in molding 
What is modern history. What is democracy? The word 
democracy? comes from the Greek and means popular rule — 
“government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” 
Democracy is thus distinguished from autocracy, the rule of 
one, and from aristocracy or oligarchy, the rule of a few. 

Ancient democracy was exclusive. All the people did not 
rule, even in the most democratic of Greek cities. Slaves, 
“The a very considerable element of the population, 

people” enjoyed no political rights, while freedmen and 

foreigners were seldom allowed to take part in public affairs. 
A democratic state at the present time does not recognize 
any slave class, freely admits foreigners to citizenship, and 
grants the suffrage to all native-born and naturalized men, 
irrespective of birth, property, or social condition. The recent 
extension of the suffrage to women in several progressive 
countries marks the final step in broadening the conception 
of “the people” to include practically all adult citizens. 

As a working system of government, democracy implies 
the sway of majorities. It is usually impossible to wait until 
Majorities t ^ ie P e °pl e aie of one mind regarding proposed 

and minori- measures or policies. A unanimous or nearly 
unanimous decision is best, of course; failing that, 
we must “count heads” and see which side has the more ad¬ 
herents. A democratic government which did not enforce 
the will of the majority would be a contradiction in terms. 
How far should the sway of a majority go? If it goes so far 
. 366 


Modern Democracy 367 

as to suppress free opinion, free speech, and free discussion in 
a public press, then there is little to choose between the abso¬ 
lutism of a democracy and the absolutism of an autocracy. 
A majority can be as tyrannical as any divine-right monarch. 
The danger of abusing majority rule makes it necessary to 
safeguard the rights of minorities, whether great or small. 
After a decision has been reached upon any question, the 
minority should still be entitled to convert (if it can) the major¬ 
ity to its views by free and open debate. In this way demo¬ 
cratic government comes to rest upon common consent, upon 
the willing cooperation of all the citizens. 

Democracy in antiquity was direct, while that of to-day is 

representative. Every citizen of Athens or Rome had a right 

to appear and vote in the popular assembly. _ 

_, T . , , . . , . - J * Direct and 

With the growth of modern states this form of represent- 

government became impossible. The population atlve de ' 

was too large, the distances were too great, for all 

the citizens to meet in public gatherings. Voters now simply 

choose some one to represent them in a parliament or congress. 

The representative system, though not unknown to the Greeks 
and Romans, was little used by them. It developed during 
the Middle Ages, when such countries as Denmark, Develop 
Sweden, the Netherlands, France, and England ment of 
established legislative bodies representing the ^ resenta ’ 
three “estates” of clergy, nobility, and commoners. 

Most of these medieval legislatures afterwards disappeared or 
sank into insignificance, but the English Parliament continued 
to lead a vigorous existence. It thus furnished a model for 
imitation, first by the American colonies, then by revolutionary 
France, and during the past hundred years by nearly all Europe. 

We have already learned how the builders of the United 
States set up what may be called the presidential system of 
government. 1 They provided for a president, presidential 
gave him executive authority, and sharply sepa- and cabinet 
rated his functions from those of the legislature. systems 
In Great Britain a cabinet system of government arose during 

1 See page 271. 


368 The Democratic Movement in Europe 

the eighteenth century, by which both executive and legisla¬ 
tive functions were centered in Parliament, and specifically 
in the House of Commons. 1 The Continental states have 
generally favored the British arrangement. Instead of a popu¬ 
larly elected president, we find in Europe, therefore, a cabinet 
or body of ministers, who execute the laws subject to the con¬ 
stant oversight and control of the legislature. Both systems 
of government are democratic. The differences between them 
relate simply to the machinery by which the people rule. 

Democracy does not necessarily imply a republican form of 

government. The establishment of the United States did, 

indeed, lead almost immediately to the formation 
Republics . . _ _ . _ . 

and dem- of the first French Republic, and the examples 

ocratic thus se t W ere soon followed by the Spanish- 

monarchies . _ r . . . 

American colomes after their separation from the 

mother country. On the other hand, Great Britain, Italy, and 

certain other European states have succeeded in developing 

governments which, though monarchical in form, are democratic 

in substance. The king still reigns by hereditary succession, 

but he does not rule. The popularly elected president of a 

republic often has more power than one of these democratic 

monarchs. 

Modern democracy is constitutional in form. There is 
generally a written constitution, of a more or less liberal type, 
_ . . to guarantee the rights of the people. The 

first document of this sort for any country was 
the Union of Utrecht (1579), by which the northern provinces 
of the Netherlands bound themselves together, “as if they 
were one province,” to maintain their liberties “with life¬ 
blood and goods” against Spain. The second was the Crom¬ 
wellian Instrument of Government (1653). The third was the 
Constitution of the United States, framed in 1787. The 
fourth was the French constitution which went into effect in 
1791. All these documents, it should be noticed, were of 
revolutionary origin: they testified to the success of armed 
rebellion against the legal government. The same thing will 

1 See page 221. 


France and the “July Revolution” 369 

be found true of many other constitutions secured by European 
peoples during the nineteenth century. 

95. France and the “ July Revolution,” 1830 

Though Louis XVIII called himself king “by the grace of 
God” and kept the white flag of the Bourbon family, he ruled 
in fact as a constitutional monarch. The Charter Reign of 
of 1814 1 established a legislature of two houses, Louis XVIII, 
the upper a Chamber of Peers appointed for life, 1814-1824 
the lower a Chamber of Deputies chosen for a term of years. 
A high property qualification for the suffrage restricted the 
right of voting for deputies to less than one hundred thousand 
persons out of a population of twenty-nine million. The mass 
of the citizens — bourgeoisie, workingmen, and peasants — 
could neither elect nor be elected to office. The French govern¬ 
ment thus remained far removed from democracy. 

As long as Louis XVIII lived, he kept some check upon the 

royalists, who wished to get back all their old wealth and 

privileged position. The accession of his brother, Reign of 

the count of Artois, 2 under the title of Charles X, Charles X, 

1824-1830 

firmly seated the reactionary elements in the 
saddle. It was well said of Charles X that after long years of 
exile he had “learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” A 
thorough believer in absolutism and divine right, the king tried 
to rule as though the Revolution had never taken place. A 
law was passed compensating the nobles for the losses which 
they had sustained by the confiscation of their estates during 
the revolutionary era. The government found the money 
for this purpose by scaling down the interest on the national 
debt. The bondholders, who saw their income suddenly 
reduced for the benefit of the aristocrats, became at once 
bitter enemies of the Bourbon monarchy. The peasants 
were aroused by the proposal to restore primogeniture, in place 
of the equal division among all the sons of lands bequeathed 
by the father. Other measures admitting the Jesuits into 

2 See page 313 and note 2. 


1 See page 354. 


37 ° The Democratic Movement in Europe 


France and giving the Church control of higher education 
seemed to indicate an open alliance between “the altar and 
the throne.” The apprehensions of the nation were increased 
when the king’s minister, Prince de Polignac, boldly announced 
his determination “to reorganize society, to restore to the 
clergy their weight in state affairs, to create a powerful aristoc¬ 
racy, and to surround it with privileges.” 

The unpopular ministry of Polignac could not command a 
majority in the liberal Chamber of Deputies. Charles X there- 
The July upon dissolved that body, but the new elections 

Ordinances, returned a chamber still more hostile to reaction. 

1830 

The king replied by issuing the infamous July 
Ordinances, which suspended the liberty of the press, dissolved 

the newly elected Chamber 
of Deputies even before it 
had met, and disfranchised 
three-fourths of the voters. 
Like James II of England, 
Charles X showed clearly 
that he held himself above 
the constitution. His arbi¬ 
trary conduct at once pro¬ 
voked an uprising. 

Paris in July, 1830, as in 
July, 1789, was the storm- 
Divine right center of the 
overthrown revolutionary 
movement. Workingmen and 
students, few in numbers but 
organized and armed, hastily 
constructed barricades in the narrow streets and defied the 
government. After three days of fighting against none-too- 
loyal troops, the revolutionists gained control of the capital. 
Charles X fled to England, and the tricolor once more flew 
to the breeze in France. 

Those who carried through the uprising in Paris wanted a 
republic, but they found little support among the liberal hour - 



Louis Philippe 

After a painting made in 1841. 



37i 


The “July Revolution’’ in Europe 

geoisie. Men of this class feared that a republican France 
would soon be at war with monarchical Europe. Largely 
influenced by the aged Lafayette, the Republicans constitu- 
agreed to accept another king, in the person of tionaiism 
Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans. He took the preserved 
crown now offered to him by the Chamber of Deputies, at 
the same time promising to respect the constitution and the 
liberties of Frenchmen. 

The new sovereign belonged to the younger, or Orleans, 
branch of the Bourbon family. 1 He had participated in the 
events of 1789, had joined the Jacobin Club, The 
had fought in revolutionary battles, and during “ Citizen 
a visit to the United States had become acquainted King 
with democratic ideals and principles. To this “ Citizen King,” 
who reigned “by the grace of God and by the will of the people,” 
France now gave her allegiance. 


96. The “July Revolution” in Europe 

The events in France created a sensation throughout Europe. 
The reactionaries were horrified at the sudden outburst of a 
revolutionary spirit which for fifteen years they had endeav¬ 
ored to suppress; the liberals were encouraged to renewed 


1 Bourbon Dynasty 


Henry IV (1589-1610) 

I 

Louis XIII (1610-1643) 


Louis XIV (1643-1715) 


Philippe, duke of Orleans 


Louis XV (1715-1 774 ) 
great-grandson of Louis XIV 

Louis the Dauphin (d. 1765) Louis Philippe (executed 1793) 

l I 

Louis Philippe (1830-1848) 

Louis XVI (1774-1792) Louis XVIII Charles X great-great-great-grandson 

(1814-1824) (i824-r83c) of Philippe 

Count of Provence Count of Artois 
“Louis XVII” (d. 1795) 





37 2 The Democratic Movement in Europe 
agitation for self-government and 



COLONNE JtJILLET 

The Bastille, after its capture in 1789, was 
leveled to the ground, and its stones were used 
to build one of the bridges over the Seine. The 
site of the fortress-prison is now a public square. 
In the center rises the July Column (154 feet 
high), commemorating the revolutionists of 
1830. 


Effect of 
the “ July 
Revolution : 


national rights. Widespread 
disturbances in the Nether¬ 
lands, Poland, 
Italy, and Ger¬ 
many compelled 
Metternich to abandon all 
thought of intervening to 
restore “ legitimacy ” in 
France. 

The union between the 
former Austrian Netherlands 
and Holland, 

Antagonism 

between made by the 
Be l gl £f* u Congress of 
Vienna, proved 
to be very unfortunate. 
Differences of language, re¬ 
ligion, and culture kept the 
two countries apart. Though 
about one-half of the Bel¬ 
gians were Flemings and 
hence closely akin to the 
Dutch in blood and speech, 
the other half were French- 
speaking Walloons. Both 
Flemings and Walloons felt 
a religious antipathy to the 
Protestant Dutch. Both 
alike had French sympathies 
and looked toward Paris for 
inspiration rather than to¬ 
ward The Hague. The an¬ 
tagonism between the two 
peoples might have lessened 
in time, had not the gov¬ 
ernment of Holland incensed 
Belgian patriots by imposing 



























The “July Revolution” in Europe 


373 



upon them Dutch law, Dutch as the official language, and 
Dutch control of the army, the civil service, and the schools. 
Just a month after the uprising in Paris, Brussels responded 



































































374 The Democratic Movement in Europe 


to the revolutionary signal. The insurrection soon spread 
The insur- to the provinces and led to a demand for com- 
rection in plete separation from Holland. The French 

Belgium government under Louis Philippe naturally favored 
this course, and Great Britain, a champion of small nationalities, 
also gave it her approval. The three eastern powers would 
gladly have intervened to prevent such a breach of the Vienna 
settlement, but Austria and Russia had disorders of their 
own to quell, and Prussia did not dare, single-handed, to take 
action which might bring her into collision with France. 

Under these circumstances an international conference met 
at London in 1831. It decided that Belgium should be “a 
Independent state independent and perpetually neutral,” with 
and neutral Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as the first ruler. The 
Belgium British had to blockade the Dutch coast and the 

French to occupy Antwerp before the king of Holland would 
consent to this arrangement. He did not recognize the in¬ 
dependence of Belgium until 1839. In that year Belgian 
neutrality was further guaranteed by a treaty to which Great 
Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia pledged their 
faith. Thus a new state, under a new dynasty, was added 
to the European family of nations. 

The disposition of the grand duchy of Luxemburg (originally 
a part of the Holy Roman Empire) formed a troublesome 
Luxemburg problem for the powers. The Congress of Vienna 
had made it a member of the Germanic Con¬ 
federation, intrusting its sovereignty and vote in the confeder¬ 
ation to the king of the Netherlands. The decision reached 
in 1831 was to give eastern Luxemburg, together with Limburg, 
to Holland, while the Walloon or western part of Luxemburg 
remained under Belgium. The Dutch king accepted this 
partition eight years later. 1 

Like the Belgians, the Poles were one of the “submerged 


1 Upon the dissolution of the Germanic Confederation in 1866, Limburg was 
incorporated with Holland. Dutch Luxemburg became an independent state in 
1867, with its neutrality guaranteed by the European powers, including Prussia. 
Until 1890, however, the grand duchy was ruled by the kings of Holland. 


The “July Revolution” in Europe 375 

nationalities” of the nineteenth century. The Congress of 
Vienna, it will be remembered, had maintained the results 
of the former partitions, giving the greater part Condition of 
of Poland to Russia, but allowing Prussia and the Poles 
Austria to keep, respectively, Posen and Galicia. Russian 
Poland became a self-governing, constitutional state, with the 



tsar, Alexander I, as its king. This experiment in liberalism 
did not last long. Alexander I, who fell more and more under 
Metternich’s reactionary influence, proceeded to curtail Polish 
rights and privileges, and the accession in 1825 of his brother, 
Nicholas I, placed on the throne an inflexible opponent of all 
free institutions. Such was the situation when news of the 
revolution in Paris reached Warsaw. 


































































376 The Democratic Movement in Europe 


rection in 
Poland 


The insurrection which now broke out in the capital soon 
became general throughout the country. It found no support 
The insur- with the Austrian and Prussian governments, 
while France and Great Britain were too far away 
to lend effective aid. Having crushed the revolt, 
Tsar Nicholas determined to uproot all sense of nationality 
among the Poles. He revoked their constitution, abolished 
their Diet, suppressed their flag, and exiled or executed 
thousands of Polish patriots. Poland was flooded with Russian 
agents, the Russian tongue was made the official language, 
and the Polish army was incorporated with the imperial troops. 
Poland became, as far as force could make her, simply another 
province of Russia. 1 

Revolution in Italy proved to be likewise abortive. This 
time not the Sicilian and Sardinian kingdoms, but the States 
The situation of the Church and Parma and Modena formed 
m Italy the centers of disturbance. The revolutionists 

raised a new tricolor of red, white, and green (which sub¬ 
sequently became the Italian flag), declared the pope deposed 
from temporal power, and drove out the sovereigns of the two 
duchies. No help reached the patriots from Louis Philippe, 
as they had expected, nor did the people of the other Italian 
states rally to their support. The result might have been 
foreseen. Metternich’s Austrian soldiers quickly extinguished 
the insurrectionary fires and restored the exiled rulers. Italy 
remained a Hapsburg province. 

The discontent which had been smoldering in Germany 
since 1815 also flamed forth into revolution. Popular out- 
The situation breaks led in Saxony to the grant of a constitution, 
m Germany an q j n Hanover and Brunswick, which already 
enjoyed constitutional government, to further liberal measures. 
But the movement made no more progress, for the great states, 
Austria and Prussia, remained quiet. The Diet of the confeder- 

1 Another revolt of the Poles was put down in 1863-1864. Their national spirit 
survived even this blow, and in 1914, upon the outbreak of the World War, Nicholas 
II issued a proclamation promising them self-government. The restoration of 
Poland to her place among the nations formed, however, the work of the Peace 
Conference. 


377 


The “July Revolution” in Europe 

ation, upon Metternich’s motion, passed a decree declaring all 
concessions wrung from a sovereign by violent means to be 
null and void; while another decree announced that a parlia¬ 
ment which refused taxes to the head of a state might be coerced 
by the confederation’s troops. These repressive measures had 
their effect in reducing Germany to its former condition of 
political stagnation. 

Notwithstanding the setbacks to the cause of democracy and 
nationalism in Poland, Italy, and Germany, the year 1830 
marks an important stage in the decline of Metier- significance 
nichismus and the system of armed intervention. of 1830 
Both the overthrow of the restored Bourbon monarchy in 
France and the disruption of the kingdom of the Netherlands 
threatened the stability of the treaties made in 1815. In the 
one case, the powers had to abandon, as far as France was 
concerned, the precious doctrine of “legitimacy” and to acqui¬ 
esce in the right of the French nation to determine its own form 
of government. In the other case, they had to submit to a 
radical modification of the territorial settlement of Vienna. 

The next eighteen years of European history witnessed no 
conspicuous triumphs for either democracy or nationalism on 
the Continent. The period was one of apparent From 1830 
stagnation in politics. Italy and Germany re- t0 1848 
mained as disunited as ever. Bohemia and Hungary continued 
to be subject to the Hapsburgs, and Poland to the Romanovs. 
Metternich, though growing old and weary, still kept his power 
at Vienna. The new rulers who came to the throne at this 
time — Ferdinand 1 1 in Austria and Frederick William IV 2 
in Prussia — were no less autocratic than their predecessors. 
But beneath the surface discontent and unrest intensified, 
becoming all the stronger because so sternly repressed by the 
governments. Journalists, lawyers, professors, and other liberal- 
minded men, who might have been mere reformers, adopted 
radical and even revolutionary views and sought with increasing 
success to impress them upon the working classes of the cities, 
the hungry proletariat who wanted freedom and who wanted 

1 Son of Francis I (1792-1835). 2 Son of Frederick William III (1797-1840). 


37^ The Democratic Movement in Europe 

bread. From time to time mutterings of the coming storm were 
heard; it burst in France. 


97. The “ February Revolution ” and the Second 
French Republic, 1848 

Louis Philippe posed as a thorough democrat. He liked 
to be called the “ Citizen King,” walked the streets of Paris 
unattended, sent his sons to the public schools, 
monarchy^ an( ^ °P ene( i the royal palace to all who wished to 
come and shake hands with the head of the state. 
It soon became clear, however, that under an exterior of re¬ 
publican simplicity Louis Philippe had all the Bourbon itching 
for personal power. A semblance of parliamentary government 
was indeed preserved, but by skillful bestowal of the numerous 
public offices and by open bribery the king managed to keep a 
subservient majority in the Chamber of Deputies. This 
system, not unlike that which existed in England under George 
III, could prevail in France because the government still re¬ 
mained undemocratic. In spite of franchise reforms which 
raised the number of voters from about 100,000 to 200,000, 
the majority of citizens continued to be excluded from political 
life. The French people found that they had only exchanged 
the rule of clergy and nobles for that of the upper bourgeoisie . 
Bankers, manufacturers, merchants — the wealthy middle 
class — now had a monopoly of office and law-making. 

Few Frenchmen, outside of the bourgeoisie , supported 
their sovereign. Both the Legitimists, as the adherents 

^ of Charles X were called, and the Bonapartists, 

Opposition f 

to the who wished to restore the Napoleonic dynasty, 

cordially hated him. The Republicans, who had 
brought about the “July Revolution” and felt 
themselves cheated by its outcome, held him in even greater 
detestation. No less than six attempts to assassinate the 
“Citizen King” were made in the course of his reign. 

The growing discontent produced a succession of plots and 
insurrections, which Louis Philippe met with the time-honored 
policy of repression. All societies were required to submit 


Orleans 

monarchy 


The Second French Republic 379 

their constitutions to the government for* approval. Editors 
of outspoken newspapers were jailed, fined, or banished. 
Criticism or caricature of the king in any form 
was forbidden. Adolphe Thiers, the liberal prime mtasmeTof 
minister, was displaced by Guizot, a famous his- Loui . s 
torian but a thorough reactionary. Louis Philippe, PPe 
like his predecessor, seemed quite determined that his throne 
should not be “an empty armchair.” 



Caricature of Louis Philippe 

Affairs did not become critical in Paris until 1848. On 
Washington’s birthday of that year vast crowds assembled on 
the Place de la Concorde and clamored for Guizot’s a revolution 
resignation. He did resign the next day, and begun 
the frightened king promised concessions; but it was too late. 
Workingmen armed themselves, threw up barricades, and 
raised the ominous cry, “Long live the republic!” Louis 
Philippe, losing heart and fearing to lose head as well, at once 
abdicated the throne and as plain “Mr. Smith” sought an 
asylum in England. 

His abdication and departure did not save the Orleans mon¬ 
archy. The revolutionists in Paris proclaimed a republic and 
summoned a national assembly, to be elected by a republic 
the votes of all Frenchmen above the age of twenty- proclaimed 
one, to draw up a constitution. Their action found favor in 
the departements , which as on previous occasions followed the 
lead of the capital city. 

The constitution of this second French Republic formed a 
thoroughly liberal document. It guaranteed com- a new 
plete freedom of speech and of assembly, pro- constitution 
hibited capital punishment for political offenses, and abolished 




380 The Democratic Movement in Europe 

all titles of nobility! There was to be a parliament of a single 
chamber, a responsible ministry, and a president chosen by 
universal manhood suffrage. This extension of the suffrage 
to include the masses marks an epoch in the history of democ¬ 
racy. The revolutions of 1789 and 1830 destroyed absolute 
monarchy and privileged aristocracy in France; the revolution 
of 1848 overthrew middle-class government and established 
political equality. 

The voters elected to the presidency Louis Napoleon, a 
nephew of the great emperor and the eldest representative 
l . of his family. During the reactionary rule of the 

Napoleon, Bourbons and the dull, bourgeois monarchy 

France nt ° f ^ ou * s Philippe, the legend 1 of a Napoleon who 
was at once a democrat, a soldier, and a revolution¬ 
ary hero had grown apace. The stories of every peasant’s 
fireside, the pictures on every cottage wall, kept his memory 
green. To the mass of the French people the name Napoleon 
stood for prosperity at home and glory abroad; and their 
votes now swept his nephew' into office. 


98. The “February Revolution” in Austria 
and Italy 

France had once more lighted the revolutionary torch, and 
this time eager hands took it up and carried it throughout 
Effect of the the Continent. Within a few months half of 
“February the monarchs of Europe were either deposed or 
Revolution f orce d to concede liberal reforms. No less than 
fifteen separate revolts marked the year 1848. Those in the 
Austrian Empire, Italy, and the German states assumed most 
importance. 

Vienna, the citadel of reaction, was one of the first scenes of 
a popular uprising. Mobs, which the civic guard refused to 
Fall of suppress, fired Metternich’s palace and compelled 

Metternich the white-haired old minister to resign office. 
Quitting the capital in disguise and with a price set upon his 
head, he made his way to England, there to compare experiences 

1 See page 348. 


The “February Revolution” in Austria 381 

with that other exile, Louis Philippe. Thus disappeared from 
view the man who for nearly forty years had guided the des¬ 
tinies of Austria, one whose name has been handed down as 
a synonym for illiberal and oppressive government. 

Metternich’s fall left the radical elements in control at Vienna. 
The city was ruled for a time by a revolutionary committee 
of students and citizens. The Hapsburg emperor, Democratic 
Ferdinand I, who so hated the very word “con- Vienna 
stitution” that he is said to have forbidden its use in his pres¬ 
ence, had to grant a constitutional charter for all his domin¬ 
ions, except Hungary and Lombardy-Venetia. A parliament, 
universal suffrage, free speech, and a free press were also 
promised by the emperor — promises which he conveniently 
ignored at the first opportunity. 

What had begun, as a democratic movement among the 
Germans of Vienna speedily became a national movement in 
other parts of the Hapsburg realm. The Czechs, Nationalism 
as the Slavic inhabitants of Bohemia are called, in Bohemia 
believed that the hour had struck to regain their liberties, 
suppressed by Austria since the Thirty Years’ War. They 
demanded that a parliament, representing all Bohemia, should 
be convoked, and that Bohemian as well as German should 
become an official language of the country. At the same time 
an effort was made to unite the Slavic peoples of the Austrian 
Empire by means of a congress held at Prague. Had this idea 
been carried out, Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia 
would have formed a separate Slavic kingdom. 

The national movement in Bohemia encountered opposi¬ 
tion on the part of the Germans there, who feared that they 
themselves would be oppressed by the triumphant Recovery 0 f 
Czechs. The government of Austria naturally Prague and 
supported the Germans. Street riots which broke Vienna 
out in Prague gave the Austrian commander, Prince Win- 
dischgratz, an excuse for bombarding the city and crushing 
the revolt (June, 1848). This success showed that the army 
remained loyal to the Hapsburgs and that a mere mob could 
not stand up against disciplined soldiers. Prince Windisch- 


382 The Democratic Movement in Europe 

gratz felt encouraged to attempt the recovery of Vienna for his 
royal master. After sharp fighting the imperial troops occupied 
the city. Martial law was then proclaimed, and the revolu¬ 
tionary leaders were executed (November, 1848). 

The national movement in Hungary centered about the 
patriot Kossuth. He first became known as the editor of a 
Louis liberal newspaper which attracted the unfavora- 

Kossuth ble attention of Metternich’s government. As a 
result, Kossuth spent three years in prison. After his release 

he entered politics and by 
his eloquence and energy 
soon took a prominent place 
among Hungarian liberals. 
Kossuth was ready for a 
breach with Austria. “ From 
the charnel-house of the 
cabinet of Vienna,” he said, 
“a pestilent wind sweeps over 
us, benumbing our senses 
and paralyzing our national 
spirit.” 

Kossuth’s influence trans¬ 
formed Hungary, almost 
Hungarian overnight, from 
independence a semi-feudal to 
Louis Kossuth a modern state. The “March 

Laws” of 1848 set up a Diet 
freely elected by the people, abolished the privileges of the 
nobles, and swept away the dues and services owed by the 
peasants. Henceforth Austria and Hungary were to remain 
united only through their common Hapsburg ruler. Even this 
slender tie disappeared after Ferdinand I abdicated in favor of 
his nephew. Francis Joseph I, the new emperor, immediately 
abrogated the “March Laws,” declaring that Ferdinand’s oath 
to uphold them did not bind his successor. Aroused to fury 
by this perfidious act, Kossuth carried through the Diet a 
declaration that the house of Hapsburg, “perjured in the 





The “February Revolution” in Austria 383 

sight of God and man,” henceforth had ceased to rule and 
that Hungary formed an independent nation. 

Unfortunately, the new state did not command the allegiance 
of all its peoples. The Magyars refused to share their newly 
won liberties with their fellow citizens, the Serbo- conquest of 
Croats of southern Hungary and the Rumanians of Hungary, 
Transylvania. This ungenerous attitude, kindling 1849 
racial animosities and jealousies, gave the Austrian government 
an opportunity to recover Hungary by force of arms. Despite 
the odds against them, the Magyars resisted so sternly that 
Francis Joseph I had to call in the aid of his brother-monarch 
and brother-reactionary, the tsar. Nicholas I, fearing lest an 
independent Hungary should be followed by an independent 
Poland, joined his troops to those of the Austrians, and together 
they overwhelmed the Magyar armies. Kossuth escaped to 
Turkey. The other leaders of revolution perished on the 
gallows or before a firing squad. 

The revolutionary flood also spread over the Italian penin¬ 
sula. Milan, the capital of Lombardy, expelled an Austrian 
garrison. Venice did the same and set up once Revolts in 
more the old Venetian Republic which Napoleon Italy 
had suppressed. 1 Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, declared 
war on hated Austria. To his aid came troops from the duchies 
of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, from the States of the Church, 
and from the Two Sicilies. Charles Albert’s proud boast, 
Italia far a da se (“ Italy will do it herself”), seemed likely to 
be justified. 

The splendid dream of a free, united Italy quickly faded 
before the realities of war. The patriotic parties would not 
act together and failed to give the king of Sardinia Sardinia 
hearty support. The pope, Pius IX, fearing a defeated 
schism in the Church, decided that he could not afford to attack 
Catholic Austria. The Bourbon ruler of the Two Sicilies also 
withdrew his troops. Sardinia, fighting alone, was no match 
for Austria. Marshal Radetzky, the able Austrian commander, 
won the battles of Custozza (1848) and Novara (1849). Charles 

1 See pages 324 and 337-338. 


384 The Democratic Movement in Europe 

Albert then abdicated and went into voluntary exile. His 
son and successor, Victor Emmanuel II, made peace with 
Austria. 

A republic set up in Rome by the revolutionary leader 
Mazzini, likewise came to grief. Pius IX, who had 
The Roman been deprived of his temporal possessions, called 
Republic in the assistance of Catholic France. To the 
overthrown p 0 p e ’ s appeal Louis Napoleon lent a willing ear, 
especially since he did not wish to allow all Italy to be subju¬ 
gated by the Austrians. A French army soon expelled the 
republican leaders and restored the pope to the States of the 
Church. The revolution in Italy thus brought only disappoint¬ 
ment to patriotic hearts. 

99 . The “February Revolution” in Germany 

Almost all the German 1 states experienced revolutionary 
disturbances during 1848. The cry rose everywhere for con- 
Revolution stitutions, parliaments, responsible ministries, a 
m Germany f ree press, and trial by jury. Berlin followed the 
example of Vienna and threw up barricades. Frederick Wil¬ 
liam IV bowed before the storm. He promised a constitutional 
government for Prussia and even consented to ride in state 
through the streets of the pacified capital, wearing the black, 
red, and gold colors of the triumphant revolution. 

The German people at this time also took an important 
step toward unification. A national assembly, chosen by 
The Frank- popular vote, with one representative for every 
fort As- fifty thousand inhabitants, met at Frankfort 
to devise a form of government for the united 
Fatherland. The learned members of the assembly had all 
the scholarship necessary for the solution of constitutional 
questions. Unfortunately, they lacked power. The revolu¬ 
tionary movements had not affected the armies, which, under 
their aristocratic officers, remained faithful to the princes of 
Germany. As long as the princes kept this weapon, the as¬ 
sembly could wield only a moral authority. It might pass 
decrees, but it possessed no means of executing them. 


The “February Revolution” in Germany 385 

The Frankfort Assembly began well by drawing up a liberal 
constitution. Rights which few German citizens then pos¬ 
sessed, such as freedom of speech, of press, of The German 
petition, were expressly guaranteed to all. There Constitution 
was to be a parliament of two houses, representing the states 
and the people, respectively, and a ministry responsible to 
parliament. The assembly also decided to replace the old 
Germanic Confederation with a new union, including Prussia 
but excluding the non-Germanic territories of Austria. The 
Hapsburg emperor, quite naturally, would have nothing to do 
with such an arrangement. The Assembly met his refusal by 
the formal exclusion of Austria from the proposed federation. 

Though some of the members of the Frankfort Assembly 
wanted to set up a republic, the majority favored a federal 
empire with a hereditary sovereign. The imperial “ The great 
title was offered to Frederick William IV. He refusal ” 
declined it. That Prussian ruler had no desire to exchange 
his monarchy by divine right for a sovereignty resting on the 
votes of the people; he would not accept a “crown of shame” 
from the hands of a popular assembly. Moreover, he knew 
that the house of Hapsburg would never consent willingly to the 
assumption of the imperial dignity by a Hohenzollern. Prussia 
thus made “the great refusal” which destroyed the hope of 
creating by peaceful means a democratic German empire. 

Rebuffed by Prussia and faced with the opposition of Austria, 
the Frankfort Assembly began to dwindle out of existence. 
Many of the larger states withdrew their repre- Collapse 0 f 
sentatives. Others resigned in disgust. Those the Frankfort 
who remained decided to disregard the princes Assembly 
altogether and to call for an uprising of the German people. 
But this German “Rump Parliament” was soon broken up by 
soldiers with drawn swords. 

The collapse of the Frankfort Assembly drove the more radical 
Germans in Saxony, Baden, and the Rhenish Revo iution 
Palatinate to attempt to set up a republic by suppressed, 
force of arms. Some of the noblest men in Ger- 1849 
many — among them Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel, who after- 


386 The Democratic Movement in Europe 

wards emigrated to America and fought in the Union army 
during the Civil War — took part in this desperate adventure 
for freedom. Their efforts were in vain. Prussian troops 
bloodily suppressed the revolution and sealed the doom of 
the first German Republic. 

The “February Revolution” died down in Europe, seemingly 
having accomplished little. Almost everywhere the old autoc- 
Significance racies remained in the saddle. The Austrian 
of 1848-1849 constitution was revoked when Francis Joseph I, 
an apt pupil of Metternich, came to the throne. The consti¬ 
tution which Frederick William IV granted to Prussia in 1850 
did, indeed, provide for representative government, but other¬ 
wise turned out to be a very illiberal document. In France, 
also, the new republic soon drifted upon the rocks of reaction. 
Discouraged by these failures, the European peoples now gave 
over to some extent the agitation for democratic reforms. 
They turned, instead, to the task of nation building. 

Studies 

1. Why is it better for a nation to make mistakes in the course of self-government 
than to be ruled, however wisely, by an irresponsible monarch? 2. Mention some 
of the essentially democratic monarchies in contemporary Europe. 3. Who was 
the last divine-right ruler of France? 4. Why did Paris and not the provinces 
play the chief part in the French revolutionary outbreaks from 1789 to 1848? 5. Why 
has France been styled the “magnetic pole of Europe”? 6. Compare the “July 
Revolution” in France with the “Glorious Revolution” in England, and Charles 
X with James II. 7. What precedent existed for the action of the powers in neutral¬ 
izing Belgium? 8. Compare the advantages received by France from the revolution 
of 1848 with those received from the revolutions of 1830 and 1789. 9. Give reasons 
for the preservation of the Austrian Empire from dissolution in 1848-1849. 10. Look 
up in an encyclopedia some account of Kossuth’s visit to the United States in 
1851-1852. 11. How was Austria the “fire department” of Italy in 1821, 1830, 

and 1848-1849? 12. Enumerate the non-Germanic territories of the ILapsburgs 

at the middle of the nineteenth century. 13. Why did the Frankfort Assembly 
wish to exclude these territories from the new imperial federation to be formed? 
14. Look up in an encyclopedia some account of the careers of Carl Schurz and 
Franz Sigel in the United States. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN EUROPE, 1848-1871 1 
100. Modern Nationalism 

Since the close of the eighteenth century, the idea of nation¬ 
alism has been at least as potent as that of democracy in mold¬ 
ing modern history. What is a nation? The what is a 
word should not be confused with “state,” which nation? 
means the entire political community, nor with “government,” 
which refers to the legislative, executive, and judicial organi¬ 
zation of the state. A “nation” may be defined as a people or 
group of peoples united by common ideals and common purposes. 

National feeling does not depend on identity of race, for that 
can be found nowhere. The inhabitants of every European 
country are greatly mixed in blood. It does de- The senti _ 
pend, in part, on sameness of speech. There is ment of 
always difficulty in uniting populations with dif- natlonallty 
ferent languages. The examples of bilingual Belgium and tri¬ 
lingual Switzerland show, however, that nations may exist 
without unity of language. Sameness of religion also acts as 
a unifying force; nevertheless most modern nations include 
representatives of diverse faiths. National feeling, in fact, is 
essentially a historic product. That which makes a nation is 
a common heritage of memories of the past and hopes for the 
future. Ireland has long been joined to England, but Irish 
nationality has not disappeared. Bohemia, long subject to 
the Hapsburgs, never lost her national spirit. The Polish 
nation still lived, though after the partitions Poland disap¬ 
peared from the map of Europe. The Jews have been scattered 

1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xxxiv, “Bismarck 
and the Unification of Germany.” 


387 


388 The National Movement in Europe 


throughout the world for many centuries, yet they continue to 
look forward to their reunion in the Holy Land. While national 
feeling endures, a nation cannot perish. 

Nationalism scarcely existed among the ancient Greeks, who 
made the town or the city their typical social unit. It was 
Rise of equally unfamiliar to the Romans, who created a 

nationalism world-wide state. It' lay dormant throughout 
most of the Middle Ages, when feudalism was local and the 
Church and the Empire were alike international. Only toward 
the close of the medieval period did a sense of nationality arise 
in England, France, Spain, and some other countries. This 
Was due to various reasons: the development of the king’s 
power as opposed to that of the feudal nobles; the growth of 
the Third Estate, or bourgeoisie , always far more national in 
their attitude than either nobility or clergy; the rise of vernac¬ 
ular languages and literatures, replacing Latin in common 
use; finally, the danger of conquest by foreigners, which greatly 
stimulated patriotic sentiments. The spread of education and 
of facilities for trade, travel, and intercourse during modern 
times made it possible for ideas of nationalism to permeate the 
masses of the people in each land. They began to feel them¬ 
selves closely bound together and to call themselves a nation. 

The French Revolution did most to develop this national 
sentiment. The revolutionists created the “fatherland,” as 

_ A . we understand that term to-day. They substi- 

Nationalism ' _ . . . , ’L . , . 

and the tuted the French nation for the French kingdom; 

for loyalty to a monarch they substituted love of 
country. When an attempt was made to crush 
the Revolution, they rose as one man, and to the inspiring strains 
of the Marseillaise drove the invaders from the “sacred soil” of 
France. 

But not satisfied with defending the Revolution at home, the 
French started to spread it abroad, and in doing so became ag- 
Napoleon and gressive. They posed as liberators; very speedily 
nationalism they proved to be subjugators. A republican 
general, Napoleon Bonaparte, transformed their citizen levies 
into professional soldiers devoted to his fortunes and led them 


French 

Revolution 


Modern Nationalism 


389 

to victory on a score of battle-fields. Napoleon, himself a man 
without a country, felt no sympathy for nationalism. Out of 
a Europe composed of many independent and often hostile 
states, he wished to create a unified Europe after the model 
supplied by Charlemagne’s empire. He even intended, had 
he been successful in the Russian campaign, to move the capi¬ 
tal of his dominions, and by the banks of the Tiber to revive 
the glories of imperial Rome. 

Napoleon carried all before him until he came into conflict 
with nations instead of sovereigns. The sentiment of national¬ 
ism, which had saved republican France, now in- National 
spired the British in their long contest with the resistance to 
French emperor, spurred the Portuguese and Span- Napoleon 
iards to revolt against him, and strengthened the will of Aus¬ 
trians, Prussians, and Russians never to accept a foreign des¬ 
potism. What the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, and Romanovs 
failed to do, their subjects accomplished. The national resist¬ 
ance to Napoleon, aroused throughout the Continent, destroyed 
his empire. 

The reaction which followed the Congress of Vienna checked, 
but could not destroy, the national aspirations of European 
peoples. As we have learned in the two preceding Nationalism, 
chapters, nationalism combined with all the liberal 18151848 
or democratic sentiments aroused by the French Revolution to 
provoke the revolutionary upheavals between 1815 and 1848. 
These met only partial success, but during the next twenty- 
three years nationalism won its most conspicuous triumphs in 
the unification of Italy and of Germany. 


101. Napoleon III and the Second French Empire, 1852 

European history from 1848 to 1871 is dominated by the 
personality of the second French emperor, Louis Napoleon, 
who influenced the fortunes of France, Italy, Ger- Louis Napo- 
many, Austria, and Russia almost as profoundly leon ’ s career 
as did Napoleon Bonaparte half a century earlier. He was 
the son of Napoleon’s brother Louis, at one time king of Hoi- 


39 ° The National Movement in Europe 

land, and after the death of “Napoleon II” became the recog¬ 
nized head of the house of Bonaparte. 1 His early life had been 
a succession of adventures. Exiled from France at the time 
of the Bourbon restoration, he found his way to many lands, 
and in Italy even became a member of a revolutionary secret 
society. Twice he tried to provoke an uprising in France 
against the Orleans monarchy and in favor of his dynasty. 
On the first occasion he appeared at Strasbourg, wearing his 
uncle’s hat, boots, and sword, but these talismans did not pre¬ 
vent his capture and deportation to the United States. A 
second imitation of the “return from Elba” led to his im¬ 
prisonment for six years in a French fortress. He then escaped 
to England and waited there, full of faith in his destiny, until 
the events of 1848 recalled him home. His election to the 
presidency of the French Republic soon followed. 

The new president inherited the Napoleonic tradition, but 

his long body, short legs, pointed mustache, and pointed 

Louis beard made a sharp contrast to the first Napoleon’s 

Napoleon’s face and figure. Nor did he possess the military 
cii&r&ctor • • 

and administrative genius of Napoleon I. He did 

have sufficient astuteness to realize that the eyes of his country¬ 
men might be dazzled by a successful adventurer trading on 
the magic name Napoleon, complete unscrupulousness in the 
choice of men and means to be employed in the rise to power, 
and an overweening ambition to revive the glories of his house. 
From the start Louis Napoleon set to work deliberately to 
deceive the French people, and indeed all Europe, regarding his 
real intentions. Posing as a sincere republican, as a devoted 
champion of liberty, he succeeded in establishing perhaps the 
most despotic regime that had ever existed in France. 

Louis Napoleon, upon becoming president of France, swore 
to remain faithful to the republic and “to regard as enemies 
An ambitious of the nation all those who may attempt by illegal 
president means to change the form of the established gov¬ 
ernment.” Events soon showed how well the oath was kept. 
His uncle had progressed by rapid steps from the consulate to 

1 See the genealogical table, page 343, note 1. 


Napoleon III and the Second French Empire 391 

the empire; he himself determined to use the presidency as a 
stepping-stone to the imperial crown. The recent adoption of 
universal manhood suffrage by the French made it necessary for 
him to enlist the support of all classes of the population. The 
army, of course, welcomed a Bonaparte at its head. The 
peasantry and bourgeoisie felt reassured when Louis Napoleon, 
far from being a radical, disclosed himself as a guardian of 
landed property and 
business interests. The 
workingmen, who had 
largely carried through 
the “ February Revolu¬ 
tion,” were conciliated 
by the promise of 
special laws for their 
benefit. So skillfully 
did the prince-president 
curry favor with these 
different groups of 
opinion in France that 
it was not long before 
he attained his goal. 

The republican com 
stitution had limited 
the presi- The coup 
dent’s term d’etat, 1851 

to four years, without 
the privilege of reelec¬ 
tion. Louis Napoleon 
did not intend to retire to private life, and determined to 
carry through a coup d’etat. On the anniversary of the battle 
of Austerlitz, loyal troops occupied Paris, dissolved the legisla¬ 
ture, and arrested the president’s chief opponents. An in¬ 
surrection in the streets of the capital was ruthlessly suppressed 
by the soldiers, and throughout France thousands of Repub¬ 
licans were imprisoned, exiled, or transported to penal colonies 
across the seas. The French people, when called upon by a 



“France is Tranquil” 

A cartoon, with Napoleon Ill’s favorite phrase as its 
text, which appeared in Harper’s Magazine. 























392 


The National Movement in Europe 


plebiscite to express an opinion as to these proceedings, ratified 
them by a large majority. Louis Napoleon then made over 
the government in such a way as to give himself well-nigh 
absolute power. 

It needed only a change of name to transform the re- 
A new em- public into an empire. An almost unanimous 
peror of the popular vote in 1852 authorized the president 
French, 1852 tQ accept the title of Napoleon III, hereditary 
emperor of the French. 

102. France under Napoleon III, 1852-1870 

France under Napoleon III had a constitution, universal 
manhood suffrage, and a legislature — all the machinery of 
“ Veiled popular rule. But France was free in appearance 
despotism ” only. The right of suffrage meant very little when 
candidates for office were nominated and elected under the 
direct supervision of the government. As for the legislature, 
it could neither propose a measure nor question ministers nor 
determine the expenditure of public money nor make public its 
deliberations. The emperor kept control of law-making, diplo¬ 
macy, the army and navy, and the entire administrative system. 

What opposition to this “veiled despotism” existed among 
liberty-loving Frenchmen was stifled by a resort to the usual 
Political agencies of repression. An infamous General Se- 

stagnation curity Act permitted the imprisonment or exile 

without trial of political suspects. Newspapers which criticized 
the emperor were, after two warnings, suspended or suppressed. 
The universities also- felt the heavy hand of the government: 
instruction in modern history and philosophy was discouraged 
as revolutionary, and liberal-minded professors lost their posi¬ 
tions. Political stagnation descended upon France. The coun¬ 
try became a sickroom where no one might speak aloud. 

France the more readily acquiesced in the loss of freedom 
Domestic because under the Second Empire she enjoyed 
policy of material prosperity. Napoleon III felt a sincere 
Napoleon in i nterest j n the welfare of all classes, including the 
hitherto neglected proletariat. By charitable gifts, endow- 



NAPOLEON III 







































CAVGUR GARIBALDI 











France under Napoleon III 


393 


merits, and subsidies he tried to show that the idea of improving 
the lot of those who are “the most numerous and the most 
poor” lay ever present in his mind. His was a government of 
cheap food, vast public works to furnish employment, and 
many holidays. “Emperor of the workmen” his admirers 
called him. On the other hand, business men profited by the 
remarkable development during this period of banks, factories, 
railways, canals, and steamship lines. The progress made was 
strikingly shown at the first Paris Exposition in 1855, when all 
the world flocked to 
the beautiful capital 
to see the products of 
French industry and 
art. 

Having failed to 
marry into the royal 
families The imperial 
of Europe, court 
who looked askance 
at an adventurer, 

Napoleon III wedded 
for love a Spanish 
lady, Eugenie de 
Montijo. Her beauty 
and elegance helped 
to make the court at 
the Tuileries such a center of European fashion as it had been 
under the Old Regime. The birth of an heir, the ill-fated Prince- 
Imperial, 1 seemed to make certain the perpetuation of the Na¬ 
poleonic dynasty. Fortune had indeed smiled upon the emperor. 

“The empire means peace,” Napoleon III had announced 
shortly before assuming the imperial title. Never- Foreign 
theless, he proceeded to make war. Like his policy of 
uncle, he believed that all that the French people Napoleon 111 
wanted to satisfy them was military glory. The emperor 

1 Killed in 1879, while fighting with the British against the Zulus in South 
Africa. The former Empress Eugenie died in 1920. 



Napoleon III and Eugenie 

From a lithograph made in 1855. 



394 


The National Movement in Europe 


had not been two years on the throne before he embarked 
upon the Crimean War against Russia. It terminated vic¬ 
toriously for him in the Treaty of Paris, the most important 
diplomatic arrangement in Europe since that of Vienna. A few 
years later success still more spectacular attended his interven¬ 
tion in the Austro-Sardinian War for the liberation of Italy. 


and Italian 
unity 


103. Disunited Italy 

It might seem from a glance at the map as if Italy, with the 
Mediterranean on three sides and the Alps on the fourth, was 
Geography specially intended by nature to be the seat of a 
unified nation. But the map is deceptive. The 
number, position, and comparative lowness of the 
Alpine passes combine to make Italy fairly accessible from the 
north and northwest; from before the dawn of history these 
passes, together with the river valleys which approach them, 
have facilitated the entrance of invading peoples. The extreme 
length of the peninsula in proportion to its breadth, its division 
into two unequal parts by the Apennines, and the separateness 
of the Po basin from th§ rest of the country are also unfavor¬ 
able to Italian unity. 

Historical circumstances have been even more unfavorable. 
The Lombards, Franks, Normans, and Germans — to say noth- 
History and ing of the Moslems and Byzantines — who estab- 
itahan unity lished themselves in Italy during the Middle Ages, 
divided the peninsula into small, weak, and mutually jealous 
states. In later times Spaniards, French, and Austrians an¬ 
nexed part of the country and governed much of the remainder 
through its petty princes. The popes also worked throughout 
the medieval and modern period to keep Italy fragmentary. 
They realized that unification meant the extinction of the States 
of the Church, or at least papal dependence on the secular 
power, and they felt that this would interfere with the im¬ 
partiality which the head of the Church ought to exercise 
toward Roman Catholics in all lands. Furthermore, the Italians 
themselves lacked national ideals, and preserved from antiquity 


Disunited Italy 


395 


the tradition of separate city-communities, ruled, it may be, 
by despots or else self-governing, but in any case independent. 
Such were medieval Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Florence, and 
Venice. 

Italian history, for the century and a half between the Peace 
of Westphalia and the outbreak of the French Revolution, is 
almost a blank. The glories of Renaissance art, Italy before 
literature, scholarship, and science were now but the French 
a memory. Centuries of misrule and internecine Revolution 
strife crushed the creative energies of the people, while their 
material welfare steadily declined after the discovery of America 
and the Cape route to the Indies shifted trade centers from the 
Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Divided, dependent, impover¬ 
ished, Italy had indeed fallen on evil days. 

The Italians describe their national movement as a Risorgi - 
mento , a “resurrection” of a people once the most civilized and 
prosperous in Europe. It dates from the shock of Italy during 
the French Revolution. The armies of revolu- the French 
tionary France drove out the Austrians, set up Revolutlon 
republics.in the northern part of the peninsula, and swept away 
the abuses of the Old Regime. Italy began to rouse herself 
from her long torpor and to hope for unity and freedom. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, himself an Italian by birth, continued 
the work of the French Revolution. “Italy,” he wrote, “is 
one sole nation; the unity of customs, of language Napoleon and 
and literature, will, in some future more or less Italy 
remote, unite all its inhabitants under one government.” Under 
Napoleon the country was, in fact, practically unified. North¬ 
western Italy, including Savoy and Piedmont, Genoa, Parma, 
Tuscany, and the papal territory about Rome, was annexed 
to France. Lombardy, Venetia, Modena, and the remainder 
of the papal territory were erected into the kingdom of Italy 
with Napoleon at its head. Southern Italy became the de¬ 
pendent kingdom of Naples. The islands of Sicily and Sardinia 
alone remained under their former rulers . 1 Throughout the 
peninsula the French emperor introduced personal freedom, 

1 See the map facing page 338. 


396 The National Movement in Europe 


religious toleration, equality before the law, and the even 
justice of the Code Napoleon. 

The year 1815 was one of cruel disappointment to patriotic 
Italians, who saw their country again dismembered, subject to 
The Austria, and under reactionary princes. 1 Men who 

Carbonari had once experienced Napoleon’s enlightened rule 
would not acquiesce in this restoration of the Old Regime. 
The great mass of the bourgeoisie , many of the nobles, and 
some of the better educated artisans now began to work for 

the expulsion of Austria 
from the peninsula and 
for the formation of a 
constitutional government 
in the various state's. Un¬ 
able to agitate publicly, 
these Italians of necessity 
resorted to underground 
methods. A secret soc¬ 
iety, the Carbonari (“char¬ 
coal burners”), sprang out 
of the Freemasons, spread 
throughout Italy, and in- 
Mazzini cited the first unsuccessful 

After a portrait by Madame Venturi about 1847 . revolutions (those of 1820— 

1821, 1830) against Aus¬ 
tria. After their failure the society ceased to have much 
importance and made way for another revolutionary organi¬ 
zation, Mazzini’s “Young Italy.” 

Mazzini, the prophet of modern Italy, was born at Genoa 
of a middle-class and well-to-do family. Endowed with all a 
Giuseppe prophet’s enthusiasm and moral fervor, Mazzini 
from early manhood gave himself to the regenera¬ 
tion of his country. He hated the Austrians, and 
he hated the princes and princelings who served Austria rather 
-than Italy. At a time when the obstacles in the way seemed 
insuperable, he believed that twenty millions of Italians could 

1 See pages 354 and 355. 



Mazzini 

1805-1872 



397 


Disunited Italy 

free themselves if only they would sink local interests and 
jealousies in a common patriotism. It was Mazzini’s great 
service that he inspired multitudes of others with this belief, 
thus converting what had seemed a utopia to his contemporaries 
into a realizable ideal. 

In 1831 Mazzini founded the secret society called “Young 
Italy.” It included only men under forty, ardent, self-sacrific¬ 
ing men who pledged themselves to serve as mis- “ Young 
sionaries of liberty throughout Italy. The oath Italy ” 
imposed upon initiates reveals the purpose of the organization: 
“By the blush that 
rises to my brow 
when I stand before 
the citizens of other 
lands, to know that 
I have no rights of 
citizenship, no coun¬ 
try, and no national 
flag; by the memory 
of our former great¬ 
ness and the sense of 
our present degrada¬ 
tion; by the tears of 
Italian mothers for 
their sons dead on 
' the scaffold, in prison, 
or in exile; by the 
sufferings of the mil¬ 
lions — I swear to dedicate myself wholly and forever to 
strive to constitute Italy one free, independent, republican 
nation.” 

As far as practical results were concerned, “Young Italy” 
proved to be as ineffective as the Carbonari had been. Never¬ 
theless, it kept alive the enthusiasm for Italian Italian 
nationalism during more than a decade. Mean- P arties 
while other political parties began to take shape. Many pa¬ 
triotic men who did not favor republican principles hoped to 






398 The National Movement in Europe 

form a federation of the Italian states under the presidency of 
the pope. Many more pinned their faith to a constitutional 
monarchy under the Sardinian king. 


104. Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour 


The kingdom of Sardinia, the student will remember, in¬ 
cluded not only the island of that name but also Savoy and 
Sardinia and Piedmont 1 on the mainland. At the middle of 
Italian unity the nineteenth century Sardinia ranked as the 
leading state in Italy. It was, moreover, the only Italian state 

not controlled by Austria 
since 1815, and in 1848- 
1849 it had warred bravely, 
though unsuccessfully, 
against that foreign power. 
After Pope Pius IX had 
shown himself unwilling to 
head the national move¬ 
ment, and after Mazzini 
had failed in his attempt 
to create a Roman Re¬ 
public, Italian eyes turned 
more and more to Victor 
Emmanuel II as the most 
promising leader in the 
Victor Emmanuel II struggle for independence. 

Victor Emmanuel II in 1849 mounted the throne of a coun¬ 
try crushed by defeat, burdened with a heavy war indemnity, 
Victor and without a place in the councils of Europe. The 

Emmanuel II ou tlook was dark, but the new ruler faced it with 
resolution. Though not a man of brilliant mind, he possessed 
much common sense and had personal qualities which soon 
won him wide popularity. He was a devoted Churchman. He 
was also a thorough liberal. His father in 1848 had granted a 

1 Piedmont (“ Foot of the Mount ”) extended from the Alps to the plains of 
Lombardy. In 1815 Genoa had been added to Piedmont. See page 354. 



Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour 


399 


constitution to the Sardinians; he maintained it in spite of 
Austrian protests, when all the other Italian princes relapsed 
into absolutism. Patriots of every type, Roman Catholics, 
republicans, and constitutionalists, could rally about this Re 
galantuomo, this Honest King, who kept his plighted word. 

Fortunately for Italy, Victor Emmanuel II had a great 

minister in the Piedmontese noble, Count Cavour. His plain, 

square face, fringed with a ragged beard, his half- camilio di 

closed eyes that blinked through steel-bowed spec- Cavour, 

» ° 1 1810-1861 
tacles, and his short, burly figure did not suggest 

the statesman. Cavour, however, was finely educated and 
widely traveled. He knew England well, admired the English 
system of parliamentary government, and felt a corresponding 
hatred of absolutist principles. Unlike the poetical and specu¬ 
lative Mazzini, Cavour had all the patience, caution, and mas¬ 
tery of details essential for successful leadership. It must be 
added, also, that his devotion to the cause of unification made 
him sometimes unscrupulous about the methods to be em¬ 
ployed: upon occasion he could stoop to all the tricks of the 
diplomatic game. As the sequel will show, his “fine Italian 
hand” never lost its cunning. 

Cavour became the Sardinian premier in 1852, a position 
which he continued to fill, with but one brief interruption, 
until his death nine years later. Faithfully sup- Sardinia 
ported by Victor Emmanuel II, Cavour bent every under 
effort to develop the economic resources of the 
kingdom, foster education, and reorganize the army. He made 
Sardinia a strong and liberal state; strong enough to cope with 
Austria, liberal enough to attract to herself all the other states 
of Italy. 

Not less successful was Cavour’s management of foreign 
affairs. Upon assuming office he had declared that Sardinia 
must reestablish in Europe “a position and prestige Sardinia and 
equal to her ambition.” The Crimean War gave the Crimean 
an opportunity to do so. Though Sardinia had 
only a remote interest in the Eastern Question, nevertheless she 
sent twenty thousand soldiers to fight with the British and 


400 The National Movement in Europe 

French against the Russians. For her reward she secured ad¬ 
mittance, as one of the belligerents, to the Congress of Paris, 
which ended the war. Sardinia now had an honorable place 
at the European council-table, and two powerful friends in 
Great Britain and France. 

Always practical and clear-headed, Cavour begair to seek a 
military ally in the coming struggle with Austria. Public 
Cavour and opinion in Great Britain sided with the Italian pa- 
Napoieon ill triots, but her statesmen considered themselves 
still bound by the Vienna settlement and could not be relied 
upon for material assistance. On the other hand, France, 
under the ambitious and adventurous Napoleon III, held out 
the prospect of an alliance. The emperor seems to have had a 
genuine sympathy for Italy; he liked to consider himself the 
champion of oppressed nationalities; and he felt no hesitation 
about tearing up the treaties of 1815, treaties humiliating to his 
dynasty and to France. In return for the duchy of Savoy and 
the port of Nice, he now promised an army to help expel the 
Austrians from Italy. 

The bargain once struck, Cavour had next to provoke the 
Austrian government into a declaration of war. It was essen- 
Quarrel tial that Austria be made to appear the aggressor 
between in the eyes of Europe. Cavour’s agents secretly 

Austria and fomented disturbances in Lombardy and Venetia. 
Sardinia J 

Francis Joseph I, the Hapsburg emperor, m an 

outburst of reckless fury, finally sent an ultimatum to Sardinia, 
offering the choice between disarmament or instant war. 
Cavour joyfully accepted the latter. “The die is cast,” he 
exclaimed, “and we have made history.” 

105. United Italy, 1859-1870 

The fighting which ensued lasted only a few months. Sar- 
Austro- dinia and France carried everything before them. 
Sardinian The allied victory of Magenta compelled the 
Austrians to evacuate Milan; that of Solferino to 
abandon Lombardy. They now fell back upon Venetia, where, 


401 


United Italy, 1859-1870 

sheltered by the great fortresses known as the Quadrilateral, 
they stood at bay. 

To the amazement of European onlookers, who deemed the 
conflict only begun, Napoleon III suddenly stayed his hand. 
The French emperor, in truth, found himself in a Villafranca 
difficult position. He had never contemplated the 
unification of all Italy, but only the annexation of Lombardy 
and Venetia to the Sardinian kingdom. The outburst of 
national feeling which accompanied the war promised, how¬ 
ever, to unite the entire peninsula, thus creating a strong 
national state as a near neighbor of France. Furthermore, 
Prussia, fearful lest the victories of the French in Italy should 
be followed by their advance into Germany, had begun to 
mobilize on the Rhine. For these and other reasons Napo¬ 
leon III decided to make an end of his Italian venture. He 
sought a personal interview with Francis Joseph I and pri¬ 
vately concluded the armistice of Villafranca. 1 

The armistice terms, as finally incorporated in the peace 
treaty, ceded Lombardy to Sardinia. Venetia, however, re¬ 
mained Austrian. Victor Emmanuel II and Ca- Lombardy 
vour, thus left in the lurch by their ally, had to ceded to 
accept an arrangement which dashed their hopes Sardima » 1859 
just on the point of realization. Losing for once his habitual 
caution, Cavour urged that Sardinia should continue the war 
alone. The king more wisely refused to imperil what had 
been already won. He would bide his time and wait. He did 
not have to wait long. 

The people of central Italy, unaided, took the next step in 
unification. Parma, Modena, Tuscany, 2 and Romagna 3 ex¬ 
pelled their rulers and declared for annexation to central Italy 
Sardinia. This action met the hearty support of annexed, 
the British government. Even Napoleon III ac¬ 
quiesced, after Cavour handed over to him both Savoy and 

1 Read Lowell’s poem, Villafranca. 

2 Lucca had been incorporated in Tuscany since 1847. 

3 The northern part of the States of the Church. Umbria and The Marches— 
also papal territories — joined Sardinia later in the year i860. 


402 


The National Movement in Europe 



Nice, just as if the French emperor had carried out the original 
agreement and had freed Italy “from the Alps to the Adriatic.” 
An ironical diplomat described the transaction as Napoleon’s 
pourboire (waiter’s tip). 

The third step in unification was taken by Garibaldi, a sailor 
from Nice, a soldier of liberty, and a picturesque, heroic 
Giuseppe figure. At the age of twenty-four Garibaldi joined 
Garibaldi, “Young Italy,” participated in an insurrection, for 
which he was condemned to death, escaped to 
South America, and fought there many years for the freedom 











































































403 


United Italy, 1859-1870 

of the Portuguese and Spanish colonies. Returning to Italy 
during the uprising of 1848, he won renown in the defense of 
Mazzini’s Roman Republic. The collapse of the revolutionary 
movement made him once more a fugitive; he lived for some 
time in New York; later became the skipper of a Peruvian ship; 
and finally settled down as a farmer on the little Italian island 
of Caprera. The events of 1859 called him from retirement, 
and he took part effectively in the campaign against Austria. 

But this man, who 
had passed through 
the fire The Xwo 

of many Sicilies an- 
, . , , nexed, 1860 

battle¬ 
fields, who had been 
shipwrecked, wound¬ 
ed, imprisoned, and 
exiled, could not rest 
until all Italy was one 
and free. When the 
Sicilians threw off 
Bourbon rule in i860, 

Garibaldi went to 
their aid with one 
thousand red-shirted 
volunteers. It seemed 
— it was — a fool¬ 
hardy expedition, but 
to Garibaldi and his 
“ Red Shirts ” all 
things were possible, 
the entire island of Sicily. Thence they crossed to the main¬ 
land and soon entered Naples in triumph. The Two Sicilies 
voted for annexation to Sardinia. Garibaldi then handed over 
his conquests to Victor Emmanuel II, and the two liberators 
rode through the streets of Naples side by side, amid the plaudits 
of the people. 

The diplomacy of Cavour, the intervention of Napoleon III, 



f “ The Right Leg in the Boot at Last ” 

A cartoon which appeared in the English journal 
Punch for November 17, i860. 


Within a month they had conquered 





404 The National Movement in Europe 


Garibaldi’s sword, and the popular will thus united the larger 
part of Italy within two years. A national parliament met at 
Kingdom of Turin in 1861 and conferred the Italian crown upon 
Italy, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II. Cavour passed away soon 
afterwards. “Let me say a prayer for you, my son,” said a 
priest to the dying statesman. “Yes, father,” was the reply, 
“but let us pray, too, for Italy.” 

The new kingdom was not quite complete. Venice and the 
adjoining region were held by Austria. Rome and a fragment 
Winning of of the States of the Church were held by the pope. 
Venetia, 1866 Two great European conflicts gave Victor Em¬ 
manuel II both of these territories. Venetia fell to Italy in 
1866, as her reward for an alliance with Prussia in the Austro- 
Prussian War. 1 A plebiscite of the Venetians, with only sixty- 
nine votes registered in the negative, approved this action. 

Four years later the Franco-German War 2 broke out, com¬ 
pelling Napoleon III to withdraw the French garrison from 
Winning of Rome. An Italian army promptly occupied the 
Rome, 1870 c ity. The inhabitants, by an immense majority, 
voted for annexation to the monarchy. In 1871 the City of 
the Seven Hills, once the capital of imperial Rome, became the 
capital of the kingdom of Italy. 

Even these acquisitions did not quite round out the Italian 
kingdom. There was still an Italia Irredenta, an “Unredeemed 
«xjnre- Italy.” The district about Trent in the Alps (the 
Trentino) and the district about Trieste at the 
head of the Adriatic, thofigh largely peopled by 
Italians, remained under Austrian rule. The desire to recover 
her lost provinces was one of the reasons which led Italy in 
1915 to espouse the cause of the Allies in the World War. 


deemed 
Italy ” 


106. Disunited Germany 

The political unification of Germany formed another striking 
triumph for nationalism, even though it did not involve, as in 
the case of Italy, the removal of a foreign yoke. National unity 

1 See page 412. 2 See page 414. 


Disunited Germany 405 

could not be won as long as a motley crowd of kingdoms, duchies, 
principalities, and free cities encumbered German soil. These 
states — the heritage of feudalism — had been The German 
practically independent since the close of the states 
Thirty Years’ War. Each made its own laws, held its own 
court, conducted its own diplomacy, and had its own army, 
tariff, and coinage. Only a map or a series of maps on a large 
scale can do justice to the German “crazy-quilt.” Here was 
a country, large, populous, and wealthy, which lacked a national 
government, such as had existed in England, France, Spain, and 
even Russia for centuries. 

The Holy Roman Empire furnished no real bond of union 
for Germany. Within the Empire were princes who also held 

territories outside. The Hohenzollerns ruled over _ . 

The Empire 

East Prussia and part of Poland; the Hapsburgs, 
over Hungary and other non-German lands. At the same 
time the kings of Great Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, by 
virtue of their possessions in Hanover, 1 Holstein, and western 
Pomerania, respectively, ranked among the imperial princes. 
Here was an empire which lacked a common center or capital, 
such as London, Paris, Madrid, and St. Petersburg were for 
their respective states. 

It is one of the ironies of history that Germany owes to 
Napoleon Bonaparte the first measures which made possible 
her later unification. By the Treaty of Campo N apo i eo n 
Formio and subsequent treaties Napoleon secured and uni- 
for France the Germanic lands west of the Rhine, 
thus dispossessing nearly a hundred princes of their territories. 2 
He subsequently reorganized much of Germany east of the 
Rhine, with the idea of setting up a few large states as a barrier 
between France on the one side and Austria and Prussia on the 
other. 3 This work survived the emperor’s downfall. Germany 
in 1815 included only thirty-eight independent states, as com- 

1 The king of Great Britain was the sovereign of Hanover between 1714 
and 1837. The accession of Queen Victoria at the latter date led to the 
separation of the two countries, since by Hanoverian law a woman could not 
occupy the throne. 

2 See page 324. 


3 See page 339- 


406 The National Movement in Europe 


and 

nationalism 


pared with more than three hundred in 1789. The destruction 
of the Holy Roman Empire by Napoleon involved another 
breach with the past; henceforth one could conceive of a new 
and genuine empire, thoroughly German, in which Austria had 
no place. 

The impulse to German nationalism also came from Napo¬ 
leon. By sweeping away so many small states he not only sim- 
Napoieon phfied the political map, but also forced Germans 
to abate somewhat their jealousies and hatreds 
and to regard one another as countrymen. The 
War of Liberation against Napoleon banded them together, at 
least for the moment, in behalf of a common cause. Prussians, 
Saxons, and Bavarians rose in arms, not to seek world con¬ 
quests, but to free themselves from an intolerable tyranny. “I 
have only one fatherland,” wrote Stein in 1812, “that is called 
Germany.” Arndt’s famous war song, What is the German 
Fatherland? expressed the same patriotic spirit. 1 

The hopes of German nationalists were dashed by the Con¬ 
gress of Vienna. The Germanic Confederation, 2 which now re¬ 
placed the Holy Roman Empire, was not, properly 
speaking, a union of states, but rather of sovereigns: 
six kings, six grand dukes, nine dukes, eleven 
princes, and four free cities, together with the 
King of the Netherlands (for Luxemburg) and the King of Den¬ 
mark (for Holstein). Each member of the confederation con¬ 
tinued to be independent, except in foreign affairs, which a 
Diet, meeting at Frankfort-on-Main, controlled. The delegates 
to the Diet were all appointed by the sovereigns and were sub¬ 
ject to their instructions. What little authority the delegates 
had was limited by the rule requiring a unanimous vote for the 
passage of any important measure. It is easy to see how under 
such circumstances the Diet became a synonym for feebleness 
and futility. 

German democracy likewise met a setback at Vienna. The 


The 

Germanic 
Confedera¬ 
tion, 1815 


1 Die Wacht am Rhein, Germany’s national anthem, was not written until 1840. 
The song, Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles, appeared a year later. 

2 See page 357. 



K.= Kingdom; GR.D.~= Grand Duchy 
ELEC.=Electorate; D. = Duchy: 
o REP.= Republic; P.= Principality; 

I - M. - ST.=Mecklenbu rg-Strelitz; L.-D. — Lippe- 
' Detmold; S.-L.=Schaumburg-Lippe; 
H.-H.=Hesse-Homburg (toHesse- 
Darmstadt, 1866); 0= Oldenburg; 

LEG . = Principality of Lichtenberg 

(to Coburg until 1834); 


Longitude 


12° from 












































































Disunited Germany 407 

successful issue of the War of Liberation had seemed to offer a 
favorable opportunity for modernizing the governments of the 
different states along constitutional and parlia- The Rest0 _ 
mentary lines. Little was done, however. Most ration in 
of the rulers remained absolute monarchs after Germany 
1815, as they had been before 1789. Absolutist sentiments were 
too firmly entrenched among the noble and official classes; the 



political education of the common people was still so little 
advanced; and the French Revolution and Napoleon together 
had inspired such general distrust of modern ideas that it was 
easy to repress any agitation for popular rights and represen¬ 
tative institutions. The rulers of Germany thus forgot or 
ignored the sacrifices which their subjects had made in the cause 
of freedom. The War of Liberation turned out to be a victory, 
not for liberalism, but for reaction. 1 


See pages 359~36 i. 







408 The National Movement in Europe 

Germany, while still politically divided, became economically 
one. The tariff duties levied by each member of the con- 
The federation against the goods of every other member 

Zoilverem greatly hampered commerce and industry. To 
meet this difficulty Prussia formed a Zollverein (Customs Union), 
which by 1834 included eighteen states. All the others, except 
Austria, afterwards joined it. Complete free trade prevailed 
between the members of the Zollverein , while protective duties 
shut out foreign competition. The Zollverein thus showed the 
German people some of the advantages of union and encouraged 
them to look to Prussia for its attainment. 


107. William I and Bismarck 


The Prussian kingdom seemed to be, indeed, the natural 
center of unity. Her population, except the Poles, was entirely 

German; she had led Germany 

Prussia and in the heroic Strug- 

German gle against Napo- 

UIUty leon; and since 

1850 she had possessed a con¬ 
stitution, which, if not demo¬ 
cratic, at least established some 
measure of parliamentary gov¬ 
ernment. The interests of 
Austria, on the contrary, were 
divided between her German 
and numerous non-German 
peoples, and the Austrian gov¬ 
ernment was the apotheosis of 
reaction. Neither nationalists 
nor democrats could expect help 
from the Hapsburgs. As for the 
central and southern states — Saxony, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, 
Baden, Hanover, and the rest — none of them was large 
enough or strong enough to attempt the arduous task of unifica¬ 
tion. But if the Hohenzollerns undertook it, how would they 
carry it through? Would they serve Germany by merging 



William I 

After a photograph taken in 1862. 



William I and Bismarck 409 

Prussia in a German nation, as Sardinia had been merged in 
Italy, or would they rule Germany? Answers to these ques¬ 
tions were soon forthcoming. 

The death of Frederick William IV 1 in 1861 called to the 
throne, at the age of sixty-four, his brother, William I. The new 
king had industry, conscientiousness, a thoroughly 
practical mind, and, what was still more important, 1 mm 
the faculty of finding capable servants and of trusting them 
absolutely. A firm believer in divine right, he did not allow 
the constitution granted by his 
predecessor to interfere with the 
royal authority. His ideals, to 
which he steadily adhered 
through a long reign, were those 
of the benevolent despots in the 
eighteenth century. 

William I was above every¬ 
thing a soldier. The Prussian 
mobilization at the . 

Army reform 

time of the Austro- 
Sardinian War convinced him 
that the army needed strengthen¬ 
ing, if it was again to be, as in 
the days of Frederick the Great, 
the most formidable weapon in Europe. With the assistance 
of Albrecht von Roon as war minister and Hellmuth von 
Moltke as chief of the general staff, the king now brought 
forward a scheme for army reform. Universal military service 
had been adopted by Prussia during the Napoleonic wars, but 
many men were never called to the colors or were allowed to 
serve for only $ short time. William I proposed to enforce 
strictly the obligation to service and in this way to more than 
double the size of the standing army. 

The scheme met strenuous opposition on the part of Prussian 
Liberals, who saw in it a detestable alliance between militarism 
and autocracy. So large an army, they argued, could only 
1 See page 377- 



Albrecht von Roon 



410 The National Movement in Europe 

be intended to overawe the people and stifle all democratic 
agitation. The Liberals held a majority in the lower house of 
Parliamentary parliament and refused to sanction the increased 
opposition expenditures necessary for army reform. William I 
decided to abdicate if he could not be supreme in military 
matters. A deadlock ensued. It was only broken when the 
king summoned Otto von Bismarck to be his chief minister. 

The man who crippled German liberalism and created mili¬ 
taristic, imperial Germany belonged to the Junker class, 1 which 
Otto von from the beginning had been the chief support of 
Bismarck, Hohenzollern absolutism. Birth, training, and in- 

404C_4OQQ 

clination made him an aristocrat, an enemy of de¬ 
mocracy, a foe of parliamentary government. He was born in 
Brandenburg of a wealthy country family and received his edu¬ 
cation at Gottingen and Berlin, acquiring, however, in these 
universities a reputation for beer-drinking and dueling rather 
than for studiousness. Young Bismarck entered the Prussian 
parliament and quickly became prominent as an outspoken 
champion of divine-right monarchy. Then followed eight 
years of service as the Prussian delegate to the Frankfort Diet, 
where he gained an unrivaled insight into German politics. 
Appointments as ambassador to the Russian and the French 
courts completed his diplomatic training. Such was the man, 
now forty-seven years of age, tall, powerfully built, with a mind 
no less robust than his body, who had come to the front in 
Prussia. 

Ministers, under the Prussian constitution, were neither ap¬ 
pointed by the parliament nor responsible to that body. It was 
“ Blood and therefore possible for a resolute minister, supported 
iron ” by the king and army, to govern in defiance of the 

legislature. This is what Bismarck proceeded to do. For four 
years he ruled practically as dictator. Each year, when the 
parliament refused to vote necessary supplies, Bismarck levied, 
collected, and spent taxes without an accounting to the people’s 
representatives.. ' The necessary military reforms were then 
carried out by the masterly hands of Roon and Moltke. The 

1 See page 210. 


United Germany, 1864-1871 


411 


country as a whole seems to have acquiesced in this bold viola¬ 
tion of the constitution. Public opinion, except that of the 
liberal middle classes, reechoed Bismarck’s famous and oft- 
quoted words: “Not by speeches and majority resolutions are 
the great questions of the day to be decided — that was the 
mistake of 1848 and 1849 — but by blood and iron.” 


108. United Germany, 1864-1871 


Successful at home, Bismarck now turned his attention 
abroad. He and his royal master were firmly determined to 

place Prussia at the head ___ 

of Germany. Bismarck 



This meant a and Austria 
conflict with Austria, for 
Bismark’s experience at 
Frankfort had convinced 
him that Austria would 
never willingly surrender 
her place in the Germanic 
Confederation. From the 
moment of becoming chief 
minister he had disclosed 
an anti-Austrian bias. He 
refused to admit Austria 
to the Zollverein and re¬ 
cognized the new Italian 
kingdom with unfriendly 
haste; finally, he opposed 
Austrian policy in the so- 


called Schleswig-Holstein Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein 
question. 

The duchies of Schleswig and Holstein — the one partly 
Danish and partly German in population, the T he Schles- 
other entirely German —had been united to Den- wig-Hoistein 
mark by a personal union through its ruler. questlon 
They remained otherwise independent and stoutly resisted all 







4i2 The National Movement in Europe 


efforts to incorporate them in the Danish kingdom. Since 
1815, moreover, Holstein had been a member of the Germanic 
Confederation. Matters came to a head in 1863, when the 
sovereign of Denmark imposed a constitution upon the duchies 
which practically destroyed their independence. This action 
aroused deep resentment among German nationalists, who wished 
to have Schleswig and Holstein united with the Fatherland. 

Bismarck saw clearly what the possession of the two duchies, 
with their strategic position between the Baltic and the North 
The Danish Sea and fine harbor at Kiel, would mean for the 

War, 1864 development of German sea-power. Their annexa¬ 

tion was the goal which he kept steadily before his eyes. Ac¬ 
cordingly, he proposed joint intervention by Austria and Prussia. 
Austria assented. A brief war followed, in which the Danes 
were overcome by weight of numbers. Denmark had to sign 
a treaty ceding Schleswig and Holstein to the victors jointly. 

As Bismarck anticipated, Austria and Prussia could not 
agree concerning the disposition of the conquered duchies. 
Quarrel The quarrel between them furnished a pretext for 

between the conflict which he had determined to provoke 

between the house of Hapsburg and the house of 
Hohenzollern. Before hostilities began, his astute 
diplomacy isolated Austria from foreign support. Napoleon 
III engaged to remain neutral, on the strength of Bismarck’s 
promises (never meant to be kept) of territorial “compensa¬ 
tions” to France from a victorious Prussia. Alexander II, the 
tsar of Russia, also preserved neutrality, as a return for Bis¬ 
marck’s recent offer of Prussian troops to suppress an insur¬ 
rection of the Poles. With Italy Bismarck negotiated a treaty 
of alliance, promising her Venetia for military assistance to 
Prussia. Austria, on her side, had the support of Saxony, 
Hanover, and lesser German states. 

Thanks to the careful organization of the Prussian army by 
Austro- Roon and to Moltke’s brilliant strategy, the war 
Prussian turned out to be a “Seven Weeks’ War.” The 

ar, 1866 p ruS sians at once took the offensive and quickly 

overran the territory of Austria’s German allies. The three 


Austria and 
Prussia 


BISMARCK MOLTKE 

After a painting by Franz von Lenbach in 1894. After a painting by Franz von Lenbach. 

















413 


United Germany, 1864-1871 

Prussian armies which invaded Bohemia crushed their Austrian 
adversaries in the great battle of Sadowa (Koniggratz). Francis 
Joseph I then sued for peace. 

The negotiations which followed revealed Bismarck’s states¬ 
manship. His royal master wished to enter Vienna in triumph, 
impose a heavy indemnity, and take a large slice Treaty of 
of the Hapsburg realm. Bismarck would not Prague 
agree, for he did not desire to create any lasting antagonism 
between Austria and Prussia which would prevent their future 
alliance. William I finally yielded to his imperious minister 
and consented to bite “the sour apple” of a moderate peace. 
By the Treaty of Prague, Austria lost no territory except Vene- 
tia to Italy and her claims upon Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia. 1 
She consented, however, to the dissolution of the Germanic 
Confederation. 

Bismarck had now a free hand in Germany. His first step 
was the annexation to Prussia of the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, 
together with the kingdom of Hanover, the elec- North 
torate of Hesse-Cassel, the duchy of Nassau, and German 
the free city of Frankfort-on-Main. The Prus- CGHfedera- 
sian dominions for the first time stretched without 
a break from Poland to the frontier of France. All the inde¬ 
pendent states north of the Main — twenty-one in number — 
were then required by Bismarck to enter a North German Con¬ 
federation, under the presidency of Prussia. The four states 
south of the Main, 2 which had thrown in their lot with Austria, 
did not enter the new confederation. They secretly agreed, 
however, to place their armies at the disposal of Prussia in the 
event of war with France. 

For Bismarck a Franco-German War “lay in the logic of 
history.” He believed it necessary, for joint action by the 

1 The treaty contained a reservation that the inhabitants of northern Schleswig 
might again unite with Denmark, if they expressed their desire to do so by a pleb¬ 
iscite. Prussia, however, would not surrender an inch of the territory which she 
had gained. Such a plebiscite was provided for in the peace treaty with Germany 
in 1919. See the map on page 411. 

2 Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt. The latter state was 
henceforth called simply Hesse. 


414 The National Movement in Europe 


North German and South German states against a common 
foe would quicken national sentiment and complete the work 
Bismarck and of unification under Prussia. He also believed it 
France inevitable, in view of the traditional French policy 

of keeping Germany disunited in order to have a weak neigh¬ 
bor across the Rhine. Napoleon III had now begun to regret 
his neutrality in the Austro-Prussian War and to realize that if 
German unity was to be prevented France must draw the 
sword. The emperor did not shrink from a struggle which he 
believed would satisfy French opinion and, if victorious, would 
firmly consolidate his dynasty. After 1867 both governments 
prepared for the war which both desired. 

In 1870 a single spark set the two countries aflame. A 
revolution had broken out in Spain, and the Liberals there had 
The Spanish offered the crown to a cousin of William I. Na- 
mcident poleon III at once informed the Prussian monarch 
that he would regard the accession of a Hohenzollern as a suffi¬ 
cient justification for war. William then gave way and induced 
his cousin to refuse the crown. Thereupon Napoleon went 
further and demanded William’s pledge never to allow a Hohen¬ 
zollern to become a candidate in the future. This pledge 
William declined to make, and from the watering-place of Ems, 
where he was staying, telegraphed his decision to Bismarck at 
Berlin. After learning from Roon and Moltke of Prussia’s 
complete readiness for hostilities, Bismarck sent the king’s 
statement to the newspapers, not in its original form, but so 
abbreviated as to be insulting. Bismarck himself said later 
that the Ems dispatch was intended to have “the effect of a 
red flag upon the Gallic bull.” Soon after receiving it, France 
declared war. 

What followed took away the breath of Europe. Fighting 
began in mid-July; by mid-August a French army under 
Franco- Bazaine was shut up in Metz; and on September 

German War, 2 the other army, commanded by MacMahon, was 

1870—1871 

defeated and captured at Sedan. Napoleon III 
himself became a prisoner. Bazaine surrendered Metz in Octo¬ 
ber. Meanwhile, the Germans pressed forward the siege of 


United Germany, 1864-1871 415 

Paris. It held out for four months and then capitulated (Janu¬ 
ary, 1871) to cold and hunger rather than to the enemy. The 
war now ended. 1 

Bismarck’s harsh treatment of France contrasts sharply 
with his previous moderation toward Austria. By the Treaty 
of Frankfort, France agreed to pay an indemnity Treaty of 
of one billion dollars within three years and to Frankfort 
support a German army of occupation until this sum was forth¬ 



coming. She also ceded to Germany Alsace, including Strass- 
burg, 2 and a large part of Lorraine, including Metz. These two 
fortified cities were regarded as the “gateways” to Germany. 
**f“As far back as 1815 Prussia had tried to secure Alsace and 
Lorraine, in order to provide a more defensible frontier for her 
Rhenish possessions. Bismarck took them, osten- The “ Lost 
sibly to regain what had once been German terri- Provinces ” 
tory, 3 but really because of their economic resources (Lorraine 
is rich in coal and iron) and their value as a barrier against 


1 Zola’s powerful novel, The Downfall, deals with the Franco-German War. 

2 French, Strasbourg. 3 See pages 186 and 349. 






The National Movement in Europe 


future French aggression. France could never reconcile herself 
to the loss of the two provinces; after 1871 she always hoped 
to win them back. -The majority of the inhabitants them¬ 
selves continued to be French in language and feeling, despite 
German schools, German military training, and a heavy Ger¬ 
man immigration. Alsace 
and Lorraine thus became 
another open sore on the 
face of Europe. More than 
anything else, their annexa¬ 
tion helped to unsettle the 
peace of the world for nearly 
half a century. 

Paris had not capitulated, 
the Treaty of Frankfort had 
The German not been signed, 
Empire before united 

Germany came into exist¬ 
ence. The four South Ger¬ 
man states yielded to the 
national sentiment evoked 
by the war and agreed with 
Prussia to enter the North 
German Confederation, re¬ 
christened the German Em¬ 
pire. On January 18, 1871, 
in the Hall of Mirrors at 
Versailles, William I took 
the title of German Emperor, 
The national movement 
between 1848 and 1871 
turned much of Europe up¬ 
side down. Austria had been driven out of Italy and 
Europe in Germany, which were now transformed into great 

1871 unified states. Denmark had lost her duchies. 

France had lost Alsace-Lorraine. All this meant the end of the 
European Concert and the balance of power established in 



“Vjs Victis ! ” 

“ Woe to the vanquished! ” A cartoon by 
Sir John Tenniel which appeared in the 
English journal Punch for March n, 1871. 
William I, in the garb of an ancient Ger¬ 
manic chieftain, rides his charger over the 
body of prostrate France. The Crown Prince, 
Bismarck, and other leaders appear in the 
background. 



4 i 7 


United Germany, 1864-1871 

1815. Napoleon III, Cavour, and Bismarck, between them, 
thus destroyed the Vienna settlement. The national move¬ 
ment did not stop or even lag after 1871. Combined hence¬ 
forth more inextricably with democracy, nationalism continued 
to be a moving force in European history during the forty-three 
years which were yet to elapse before the outbreak of the World 
War. 


Studies 

1. Locate the battle-fields of Magenta, Solferino, Sadowa (Koniggratz), and 
Sedan. 2. Differentiate the meanings of the terms “nation,” “people,” “state,” 
and “government.” 3. “Nationalism is simply the tangible outward manifestation 
of the growth of democracy.” Does this seem to be a defensible statement? 
4. Mention some of the “submerged nationalities” of Europe at the middle of 
the nineteenth century. 5. “Nations are seldom born except on the field of 
battle.” Illustrate this statement. 6. Compare the coup d'etat of Louis 
Napoleon with that of Napoleon Bonaparte. 7. What is meant by saying 
that Napoleon III could not “sit still”? 8. Show that the Alps provide a less 
satisfactory boundary for Italy than the Pyrenees for Spain. 9. Why has 
the Po Valley been called the “cockpit of Europe?” 10. Why should Gari¬ 
baldi, rather than Cavour, be the national hero of Italy? 11. Where is the 
republic of San Marino? 12. How could Bismarck justify his policy of uni¬ 
fication through “blood and iron?” 13. Why was Austria excluded from unified 
Germany? 14. Why did Prussia treat Austria mildly in 1866 and France harshly 
in 1871? 15. “The Seven Years’ War may be looked upon as the first act of the 
drama that was played out at Sadowa and Sedan.” Explain this statement. 

16. What is meant by the saying that “Prussia was hatched from a cannon ball?” 

17. Show that the German Empire, as established in 1871, was not a continuation 
or restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. 18. Compare William I with Victor 
Emmanuel II and Cavour with Bismarck. 19. Contrast the methods employed 
in the unification of Italy and Germany, respectively. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE BRITISH 
EMPIRE 1 

109 . Great Britain 

Great Britain affords unusual advantages for the develop¬ 
ment of an independent, numerous, and wealthy people. Its 
The island of proximity to the mainland makes intercourse easy, 
Great Britain since 1066 the English Channel and North Sea 
have been wide enough to form an effective barrier against 
sudden invasion. A position on the western edge of Europe 
and opposite the New World enabled Great Britain to profit 
by the geographical discoveries of the fifteenth century, which 
shifted the seat of trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic 
seaboard. Commercial expansion has also been facilitated by 
the extended coast line and many good harbors of the islands. 
The shallowness of the surrounding seas accounts for the fact 
that British fisheries are among the most valuable in the world. 
Agriculturally, Great Britain owes much to its equable climate 
and abundant rainfall. Farming and sheep raising were the 
most important occupations during the Middle Ages and early 
modern times. After the introduction of machinery and steam 
power, the country was found to contain vast stores of coal and 
iron. These resources, together with the wool produced at 
home and the cotton imported from abroad, furnished the 
foundation of British supremacy in mining and manufacturing 
during the past one hundred and fifty years. 

Nature has divided England into two distinct regions. South- 
Engiand eastern England is prevailing level, though 
varied with hills or uplands of limestone and chalk. 
This part of the island has the most fruitful soil. It was 

1 Webster, Historical Source Book , No. 22, “Chartist Petition, 1838.” 

418 


Great Britain 


419 


therefore the part first settled by the Germanic invaders, and 
until the nineteenth century was the most prosperous and pro¬ 
gressive section of the country. Recent economic changes have 
made northern and western England the chief seat of popu¬ 
lation and industry, with the exception of London. Once 
solitary stretches of mountain side and bleak moorland are 
now studded with busy cities: Manchester, center of the cot¬ 
ton manufacture, Leeds, of the woolen; Birmingham and 
Sheffield, headquarters for the production of iron and steel; 
Liverpool, the world’s greatest seaport; and many others. 

The boundary between England and Scotland is formed by 
the Solway Firth, the Cheviot Hills, and the Tweed River. 
The Lowlands, especially the district drained by Scotland 
the Forth and the Clyde, include most of the 
towns of Scotland. The Clyde is a great shipbuilding center, 
and Glasgow on its banks ranks next to London among British 
cities. The Highlands, bounded by a rocky coast and cold, 
stormy seas, comprise about two-thirds of the total area of 
Scotland. They are, however, poor and thinly populated. ^ 

The mountainous character of Wales has always fitted it 

for sheep raising rather than for farming. Scarcely more than 

half the soil is now under cultivation. Wales, „ , 

_ . . . . . Wales 

however, possesses rich resources m its mines 

of coal, iron, copper, and zinc and its slate and limestone 

quarries. Nearly all the towns are situated on the narrow 

coastal plain. < 

The people of Great Britain, though one in government, 
scarcely form a real nation. England is still the principal 
country, as containing the capital city and in Tfae English 
respect to extent, population, and wealth. There 
exists a real contrast between the “ Old England ” of the 
southeast, conservative, aristocratic, and Anglican, and the 
new industrial England, democratic in outlook and prevailingly 
Dissenting in religion. . The English of the north and west, with 
the Scotch, Welsh, and Irish, formed the mass of the Liberal 
Party during the nineteenth century. 

Scotland joined with her southern neighbor and former enemy 


4 2 o United Kingdom and British Empire 

in a personal union (1603), when the Scottish king, James VI, 
inherited the throne of England as James I. 1 The Act of 
Union (1707) gave the two countries a common 
Parliament and abolished all trade restrictions 
between them. 2 Since then Scotland has continued to enjoy 
local self-government, as well as the benefits of close and 
friendly intercourse with England. The former hostility be¬ 
tween Scots and English has practically disappeared. It is 
significant of the complete change of sentiment that within 
the past twenty-five years three Scots have served as prime 
ministers of Great Britain. 3 

Wales was conquered by Edward I near the close of the 
thirteenth century, but was not finally incorporated into the 
The Welsh English parliamentary system until the reign of 
Henry VIII, about two hundred and fifty years 
later. In spite of the immigration of English people into 
Wales and the teaching of English in the schools, the Welsh 
have managed to retain their own language. Of the two 
million inhabitants of Wales, about half still speak Cymric. 
Many newspapers, periodicals, and books are also printed in 
that ancient tongue. Popular festivals ( eisteddjodau ), both 
local and national, also do much to stimulate interest in the 
music, art, and literature of this little people. Their national 
consciousness has found expression in politics by the rise 
of a distinct Welsh political group, which endeavors to ad¬ 
vance the special interests of Wales in Parliament. 

An Act of Union, passed by Parliament in 1800, 4 joined 
Ireland and Great Britain to form the United Kingdom. Ire- 
Great Britain land received one hundred seats in the House of 
and Ireland Commons and thirty-two (later twenty-eight) 
seats in the House of Lords. This measure, unlike the earlier 
act which united England and Scotland, was not one of con¬ 
sent; it was a forced union which Irish patriots have never 
since ceased to resent. 

1 See page 155- 2 See P a S e !73- 

3 Earl of Rosebery, Mr. A. J. Balfour, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. 

4 Effective January i, 1801. 



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Parliamentary Reform 


421 




3. Great Britain 



4. Ireland 



5. Great Britain and 
Ireland 


The Union Jack 


The Act of Union with Scotland ( 1707 ) required that England and Scotland should have 
one flag made of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew combined. After the union with 
Ireland ( 1801 ) the cross of St. Patrick was incorporated in the flag. The name “Jack ” 
comes from the French Jacques, referring to James I, the first sovereign of Great Britain. 


110. Parliamentary Reform, 1832 

Whig rule under the first two Georges came to an end ten 
years after the accession of George III in 1760. 1 It was the 
Tory ministry of Lord North (1770-1782) which The Tory 
plunged Great Britain into the contest with the ascendancy 
Thirteen Colonies. The Younger Pitt, who became prime 
minister shortly after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, 
reorganized the Tory Party. Pitt’s first ministry (1783-1801), 

1 See page 223. 





























































422 United Kingdom and British Empire 


with the exception of Walpole’s, was the longest in English 
history. Other Tory leaders succeeded Pitt in office during 
the remainder of George Ill’s reign and that of his son and 
successor, George IV . 1 y 

The French Revolution, with its insistence upon “ Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity,” promised at first to advance the demo¬ 
cratic cause in Great Britain as on the Continent. 
Tory reaction a whig as Charles James Fox could hail the 

news of the fall of the Bastille with the exclamation: “ How 
much is this the greatest event that has ever happened in 
the world, and how much the best! ” Burke, another promi¬ 
nent Whig, took the opposite view, and in his celebrated Reflec¬ 
tions on the French Revolution predicted that the overthrow of 
the Old Regime would be followed by mob violence, anarchy, 
and military despotism. The excesses of the French radicals 
soon justified Burke’s fears and filled both liberal Whigs and 
conservative Tories with deep distrust of all innovations in 
government or society. The long struggle with France also set 
back the popular movement, for foreign warfare on a large scale 
generally suspends internal reforms. The revolutionary and 
Napoleonic period formed, therefore, a period of Tory reaction 
in Great Britain. 

A century ago Great Britain was still an undemocratic 
country. The “ Glorious Revolution ” had preserved the liberty 
Undemocratic of the upper classes, but not the liberty of the 
Great Britain middle an d lower classes. The House of Lords, 
composed of nobles and bishops who sat by hereditary right or 
by royal appointment, continued to be a stronghold of aristoc¬ 
racy. Even the House of Commons, the more popular branch 
of Parliament, represented only a fraction of the British people. 

According to the representative system which had been 
The unre- fixed in medieval times, each of the counties 
formed House (shires) and most of the towns (boroughs) of Great 
of Commons g r j ta i n an d Ireland had two members in the 
House of Commons. Representation, however, bore no relation 
to the size of the population in either case: a large county and 

1 1820-1830. 


Parliamentary Reform 423 

a small county, a large town and a small town, sent the same 
number of representatives. Some flourishing places, such as 
Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield, which had 
grown up since the Middle Ages, were without representation. 
Other places — the so-called “ rotten ” boroughs — continued 
to enjoy representation long after they had so decayed that 
nothing remained of them but a single house, a green mound, a 
park, or a ruined wall. The electoral system was equally an¬ 
tiquated. Only landowners could vote in the counties, while 
in many of the boroughs a handful of well-to-do people alone 
exercised the franchise. Not more than five per cent of all the 
adult males in Great Britain possessed the right to vote. There 
were even some “ pocket ” boroughs, where a rich man, gen¬ 
erally a nobleman, had acquired the privilege of naming the 
representatives. As the Younger Pitt truly declared, “ This 
House is not a representative of the people of Great Britain; 
it is the representation of nominal boroughs, of ruined and 
exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, 
of foreign potentates.” 

The restricted franchise in the boroughs made it easy to 
corrupt elections to the House of Commons. Bribery of 
voters reached its height under George III, who corruption and 
fostered the system in order to strengthen his intimidation 
own authority, -r Not only were individual voters 
bribed, but “ rotten ” and “ pocket ” boroughs were often sold 
outright to the highest bidder. The average price of a borough 
was about five thousand pounds. Thanks to the custom of 
open polling, voters in the counties were particularly subject 
to intimidation by landlords, employers, and officials. The 
evils of bribery and coercion were increased in borough and 
county alike by the drunkenness and turmoil which prevailed 
during elections. 

Efforts to improve these conditions began in the eighteenth 
century, but for a long time accomplished nothing. Sober 
people, alarmed by the events in France, coupled parliamentary 
reform with revolutionary designs against the government. 
After 1815, however, the Reign of Terror and Napoleon Bona- 


424 United Kingdom and British Empire 

parte were no longer bogeys; and public opinion grew steadily 
more hostile to a system of representation which excluded so 
Agitation for man y educated, prosperous members of the 
parliamentary middle class from political power. Great Whig 
reform nobles also espoused the liberal cause and made it 

a party question. The Tories on their side, stood rock-like 
against anything which savored of democracy. The duke of 
Wellington, who had become prime minister, even declared that 
nothing better than the existing system could be devised “ by 
the wit of man.” This obstinate refusal to make even the 
slightest concessions caused the downfall of the duke’s min¬ 
istry. In 1830, the year of the “ July Revolution ” in France, 
the Whigs under Earl Grey returned to office, under pledge to 
introduce a measure for parliamentary reform. 7“' 

The events which followed cast much light on British methods 
of government. The Reform Bill introduced by Earl Grey 
Passage of the to P ass the House of Commons. Parlia- 

First Reform ment was then dissolved, in order to test the 
sentiment of the country by means of a general 
election. “ The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill,” 
cried the reforming Whigs. They triumphed, and another 
Reform Bill passed the new House of Commons by a large 
majority. The House of Lords, staunchly Tory, threw it out. 
During the next session yet a third bill was put through the 
Commons. The Lords insisted upon amendments which the 
ministry would not accept. Meanwhile, popular excitement 
rose to fever pitch, and in one mass meeting after another the 
Lords were denounced as. a corrupt and selfish oligarchy. Earl 
Grey advised the king 1 to create enough Whig peers to carry 
the measure in the upper chamber. The king refused to do so; 
the premier and his associates resigned; and the duke of Wel¬ 
lington tried without success to form another Tory ministry. 
Earl Grey then resumed office, having secured the royal 
promise to create the necessary peers. This extreme step was 
not taken, however, for the mere threat of it brought the Lords 
to terms. In 1832 the long-debated bill quietly became law. 

1 William IV (1830-1837), a brother of George IV 


Political Democracy 4 2 5 

The First Reform Act achieved two results. It suppressed 
most of the “ rotten ” and “ pocket ” boroughs, thus setting 
free a large number of seats in the House of Com- Provisions of 
mons for distribution among towns and counties the First Re- 
which were either unrepresented or insufficiently form Act 
represented. It also gave the franchise in the counties to 
tenants who paid a rent of at least ten pounds a year, and in 
the towns to all who owned or rented a building of the same 
annual value. The act thus considerably increased the number 
of voters in the United Kingdom. Workingmen and agricul¬ 
tural laborers — the majority of the population — still remained 
unenfranchised. 

The First Reform Act effected a momentous change in 
British politics. The Revolution of 1688-1689 had trans¬ 
ferred the chief power from the sovereign to the Advent of the 
upper class, or landed aristocracy. 1 The par- 011(1(116 class 
liamentary revolution of 1832 shifted the balance to the middle 
class of merchants, manufacturers, and professional men — 
the Continental bourgeoisie. Henceforth for many years it 
continued to rule Great Britain. 

The events of 1832 have another significance as well. They 
proved that the Tory aristocracy, entrenched in the House of 
Lords, could not permanently defy the popular Reform versus 
will, that “ it was impossible for the whisper of a revolu ti on 
faction to prevail against the voice of a nation.” The Lords 
yielded, however ungraciously, to public opinion. Their action 
meant that for the future Great Britain would progress by 
peaceful, orderly reform, rather than by revolution. That 
country is the only considerable state in Europe which during 
the past century has not undergone a revolutionary change of 
government. 


111. Political Democracy, 1832-1867 

The passage of the First Reform Act profoundly affected 
the two historic parties. The Whigs appeared henceforth as 


1 See page 172. 


426 United Kingdom and British Empire 

the particular champions of all liberal, progressive measures. 
They soon discarded their old name and began to call themselves 
Liberals and Liberals. The Tories, now known as Conserva- 
Conservatives tives, were in theory opposed to further changes, 
but when holding office generally went as far as their opponents 
in the direction of reform. )(Both parties realized that the 
time had come for Great Britain to correct old abuses and to 
modernize her institutions. 

The next thirty-five years constituted a veritable era of 
reform in almost every field. During these years Parliament 
An era of abolished slavery throughout the British Empire, 
reform enacted a judicious Poor Law to reduce pauperism, 

passed legislation ame¬ 
liorating conditions of 
employment in fac¬ 
tories and mines, modi¬ 
fied the harshness of the 
criminal code, began to 
establish a system of 
popular education, and 
adopted free trade. 
Nothing was done, how¬ 
ever, toward further ex¬ 
tension of the suffrage. 

The failure of Par-' 
liament to enfranchise 
.» the masses 

Chartism 

produced 
much popular discon¬ 
tent, and Tchmng the 
early years of Queen 
Victoria’s reign 1 the movement known as Chartism began to 
make headway among workingmen. The Chartists derived 
their name from a charter of liberties which they proposed to 
secure. It demanded the famous Six Points: (i) universal 
manhood suffrage; (2) secret voting; (3) equal electoral dis- 

1 Victoria (1837-1901) was the niece of George IV and William IV. 




Political Democracy 4 2 7 

tricts; (4) removal of the property qualifications for member¬ 
ship in Parliament; (5) payment of members of Parliament; 
and (6) annual parliamentary elections. All but the last of 
these demands, which seemed so radical at the time, have 
since been granted. 

The “ February Revolution ” in Paris, reverberating in 
London, led to preparations for a great Chartist demonstration. 
Six million persons, it was announced, had signed The Chartist 
a petition for the Six Points, and hah a million Petition, 1848 
men, many of them armed, made ready to carry' it to Parlia¬ 
ment. The government took alarm and put a large force of 
special constables under the command of the aged but still 
courageous duke of Wellington, to protect life and x property. 
The government’s firm attitude, coupled with a downpour of 
rain on the day appointed for the procession, dampened the 
spirits as well as the bodies of the Chartists, and they dis¬ 
persed. Their monster petition, upon examination, was found 
to contain less than hah the boasted number of signatures, and 
of these many were fictitious. This exposure discredited the 
whole Chartist movement. 1 

The collapse of Chartism did not end the agitation for a 
more democratic Great Britain. The popular movement there 
owed much to the outcome of the American Civil New political 
War, which was regarded as a triumph for democ- leaders 
racy.'/ It began to seem anomalous that British workingmen 
should be denied the vote about to be granted negroes in the 
United States. Two great statesmen — one a Liberal and the 
other a Conservative — perceived this clearly, and each became 
an advocate of further parliamentary reform. The two states¬ 
men were Gladstone and Disraeli. 

William Ewart Gladstone, the son of a rich Liverpool 
merchant of Scottish birth, had been educated at aristocratic 
Eton and Oxford. When only twenty-four years Gladstone, 
old, he entered Parliament from a “ pocket ” 1809 ~ 1898 
borough. Gladstone’s rise was rapid, for he had wealth, family 

1 Charles Kingsley’s Alton Locke is a novel dealing with Christian Socialism and 
Chartism. 


428 United Kingdom and British Empire 

influence, an attractive personality, wide knowledge both of 
books and of men, enormous energy, and oratorical gifts of a 
high order. All things considered, no Englishman of Glad¬ 
stone’s generation equaled him as a public speaker. /-His voice, 
singularly clear and far-reaching, his eagle glance, his command 
of language, and his earnestness made him an impressive figure, 
whether in the House of Commons or on the platform. This 
“ rising hope of the stern, unbending Tories,” as the historian 
Macaulay called him, in time disappointed his political backers 
by joining the Liberal Party. ITt was as a Liberal that Glad¬ 
stone four times became prime minister of Great Britain. 1 

Benjamin Disraeli belonged to a converted Jewish family of 
London. His father, a well-known author, had him educated 
Disraeli, privately. He first appeared before the public 

1804-1881 as a novelist, and in one book after another pro¬ 

ceeded to heap ridicule upon the upper classes. ^Entering 
Parliament as an independent radical, Disraeli’s florid speech 
and eccentricities of dress — he wore bright colored waistcoats 
and decked himself with rings — at first only provoked derision. 
Gradually, however, the young man’s cleverness and courage 
overcame the prejudice against him. His own radical view¬ 
point altered, and before long he became a Conservative, posing 
henceforth as a staunch defender of the Crown, the Established 
Church, and the aristocracy. Disraeli proved to be an expert 
parliamentarian, always formidable in debate. For thirty 
years he absolutely dominated the Conservative Party and 
twice he realized a once “ wild ambition ” to be prime minister. 2 

In 1866 Gladstone, then leader of the House of Commons, 
introduced a measure for franchise reform. Such old-fash- 
Passage of the ioned Liberals as were opposed to further 
Second Re- concessions to democracy combined with the 

Conservatives to defeat the bill and overthrow the 
ministry. The Conservatives then returned to power, with 
Disraeli the real, though not the titular chief of the party. 
The Conservative ministry was even less friendly to reform than 

1 In 1868-1874,1880-1885, 1886, and 1892-1894.. 

2 In 1868 and 1874-1880. 


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Political Democracy 429 

its Liberal predecessor, but popular demonstrations through¬ 
out the country convinced Disraeli that an extension of the suf¬ 
frage could no longer be delayed. He decided “ to dish the 
Whigs ” by granting it himself. This was done in 1867. 

The Second Reform Act gave the vote in the boroughs to all 
householders, whatever the value of their property, and to all 
lodgers who paid ten pounds or more a year for p rovisions of 
unfurnished rooms. By thus enfranchising work- the Second 
ingmen, it almost doubled the electorate. The Reform Act 
only considerable class still without the vote was that of the 
agricultural laborers. 

112. Political Democracy, 1867-1918 

Disraeli expected that the Second Reform Act would unite 
under the Conservative banner both aristocrats and working 
people against the great middle class represented Ballot Act, 
by the Liberals. He was disappointed. The next 1872 
election showed that the enfranchised workingmen preferred 
Gladstone’s Liberal leadership., In 1872 Gladstone, who had 
now become premier, secured the passage of a bill providing 
for the secret or Australian 1 ballot, in place of open elections. 
The Ballot Act did away with the old-time corruption and 
intimidation in elections. K 

During his second ministry Gladstone carried democratic 
reform still farther by the passage of the Third Reform Act. 
It made the county franchise practically identical Third Reform 
with that of the boroughs, thus giving the vote Act » 1884 
to agricultural laborers. Most Conservatives and many 
Liberals thought it dangerous to go to such lengths. But 
Gladstone answered: “ I take my stand upon the broad principle 
that the enfranchisement of capable citizens, be they few or 
be they many — and if they be many so much the better — 
is an addition to the strength of the state.” 

The United Kingdom after 1884 enjoyed virtually universal 
manhood suffrage, such as had already been established in 

1 First used by British colonists in Victoria, Australia, and now found in the 
United States and many other countries. 


430 


United Kingdom and British Empire 


+ 


France (1848), Germany (1871), and the United States. But 
the demand for “ votes for women,” which began to be heard 
Agitation for horn about this time, only aroused the anger 
woman suf- or ridicule of Liberals and Conservatives alike. 

Nevertheless, woman suffrage organizations were 
formed, debates were held on the platform and in the 
newspapers, and equal franchise bills were introduced into 
Parliament. The movement made slow progress, though some 
women received the right to vote in local elections.' A num¬ 
ber of the leaders, including Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and 
her two daughters, then adopted “ militant ” methods, in 
order to bring the issue prominently before the public. 
This they succeeded in doing, though the average Britisher 
was rather repelled than attracted by the petty outrages which 
the “ suffragettes ” committed. As late as 1913 Parliament 
rejected a bill for a reform of the suffrage, in which women 
should share. .4 

The World War gave women the vote in the United King¬ 
dom. Their patriotic service in the hospitals, in munition 
Equal factories, and on the farms had its reward in 1918, 

Franchise when both parties in Parliament assented to an 

Equal Franchise Act. This measure ranks in 
importance with the three acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884. It 
not only confers the franchise for the House of Commons upon 
substantially every man over twenty-one years of age in Great 
Britain and Ireland, but also confers it upon every woman over 
thirty years of age who has hitherto voted in local elections 
or is the wife of a local elector. 1 There are now over twenty- 
one million voters in the United Kingdom, or nearly one half 
of the population. 

After almost a century of gradual reform Great Britain has 
thus definitely abandoned the old theory, rooted in feudal 
Democratic conceptions, of the franchise as a privilege attached 
Great Britain to t h e ownership of property, especially land. 
Voting henceforth becomes a right to be enjoyed by every 

1 The first woman to be elected to the House of Commons was Lady 
Astor (a former American girl), who took her seat in December, 1919. 


Government of the United Kingdom 43 1 

citizen, whether man or woman. A general election for mem¬ 
bers of Parliament is now an appeal to a responsible people, 
and the will of the majority of the people must be carried out 
by Parliament. Politically, Great Britain ranks among the 
most democratic of modern countries. 

113 . Government of the United Kingdom 

The British constitution is both written and unwritten. 
The written part consists, first, of such documents as Magna 
Carta and the Bill of Rights, which represented The written 
agreements between king and people; second, constitution 
of parliamentary statutes, such as the Habeas Corpus Act, the 
Act of Settlement, and the various Reform Acts; third, of inter¬ 
national treaties, including the Union with Scotland and the 
Union with Ireland; and fourth, of the Common Law as ex¬ 
pressed in court decisions. All these documents have never 
been brought together in one comprehensive instrument like 
the constitutions of the United States, of France, and of other 
modern countries. 

The unwritten part of the British constitution includes a 
mass of customs binding on both Crown and Parliament. Some 
of them reach back to medieval times, but others The unwritten 
are more recent, for instance, those relating to constitution 
the cabinet. Traditional usages of this sort grow up about 
any constitution, even our own, as may be seen from comparing 
the constitutional provision for an electoral college with the 
actual method in vogue for choosing the President. In Great 
Britain they play a still larger part in the conduct of government, 
owing to the love of precedent so characteristic of the British 
people. 

As far as appearances go, the sovereign of Great Britain and 
Ireland is a divine-right monarch. Coins and proclamations 
still recite that he rules “ by the grace of God ” The Crown 
(del gratia), and the opening words of the British 
national anthem are “ God Save Our Lord and King.” He is 
also, as far as appearances go, an absolute monarch. What¬ 
ever the government does, from the arrest of a criminal to the 


43 2 United Kingdom and British Empire 


declaration of a war, is done in his name. But every one knows 
that the British sovereign now only acts by and with the ad¬ 
vice of his responsible ministers. Should George V attempt 
to revive the absolutism of James II, he would meet the fate of 
James II. 

This figurehead king occupies, nevertheless, a useful place in 
the British governmental system. As the representative of the 
Position of nation, he often exercises a restraining, moderating 
the Crown influence upon public affairs, especially through 
his consultations with politicians of both parties. He himself 
stands above party. A common loyalty to the Crown, as an 
ancient, dignified, and permanent institution, also helps to bind 
together the self-governing commonwealths of the British Em¬ 
pire. It is a symbol of imperial unity such as could scarcely be 
afforded by an elective and constantly changing Presidency. 
The rising tide of republicanism has thus failed to affect the 
British monarchy, and the personal popularity of Queen Victoria, 
Edward VII, and George V seems to have established it more 
solidly than a century ago in the esteem of their subjects. / 

British legal theory makes Parliament consist of the Crown, 
the House of Lords, and the House of Commons.^ The share 

_ of the Crown is now limited to expressing assent to 

Parliament , . J; ° . , 

a bill after its passage by the Commons and the 

Lords. Such assent the king must give. The royal veto has 
not been expressly taken away, but Queen Anne in 1707 was 
the last sovereign to exercise this former prerogative. Nor may 
the courts set aside an act of Parliament as unconstitutional, for 
every statute is a part of the constitution. ^An American 
student, accustomed to the water-tight division of powers be¬ 
tween President, Congress, and the federal courts, finds it hard 
to appreciate the legal omnipotence of the British Parliament. 
The only check upon it is the political good sense of the British 
people. E 

The House of Lords contains upwards of seven hundred 
House of members. The Lords Spiritual include the two 
Lords archbishops and most of the bishops of the Angli¬ 

can Church in England. The Lords Temporal include princes 


Interior oe the House of Commons 

The narrow room in which the House of Commons holds its sessions contains seats for less than 350 of the 615 members. The discomfort in. 
crowding is compensated for by the ease of hearing. The representatives sit on benches facing one another across the aisle. The Speaker of the House 
occupies a chair at the end of the room. On his right are the members of the Ministry; on his left, the Opposition. The Speaker’s symbol, the mace, is 
carried before him when he formally leaves and enters the House, and remains on the table while he occupies the chair. 



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433 



































































































































































































































































































































434 United Kingdom and British Empire 

of the royal blood, English peers holding office by hereditary 
right, sixteen representative peers of Scotland, and twenty- 
eight representative peers of Ireland. There are also four law 
lords, who, with the Lord Chancellor, form the highest court of 
appeal for certain cases. The Lord Chancellor presides over the 
House of Lords. The power -to create new peers belongs to the 
Crown, but usually the prime minister decides who shall be 
selected for this honor. Distinction in any field is frequently 
recognized by the grant of a peerage. 1 Lawyers, authors, 
artists, scientists, and generals rub shoulders with gentleman 
landlords, capitalists, and politicians on the floor of the House 
of Lords. 

The House of Lords was the dominant chamber until the pas¬ 
sage of the First Reform Act. Since then it has been understood 
Parliament that the Lords might not oppose the Commons on 
Act, 1911 an y measilre supported by a majority of the 

electorate. This purely conventional restriction was written 
into the constitution by the Parliament Act of 1911. The 
Lords agreed to it only when confronted, as in 1832, with the 
prospect of being “ swamped ” by a large number of newly 
created Liberal peers. The Parliament Act deprives the upper 
chamber of all control of money bills, that is, bills levying taxes 
or making appropriations. Such measures become laws one 
month after being sent from the Commons to the Lords, whether 
accepted by the latter or not. The act further provides that 
every other bill, passed by the Commons in three successive 
sessions (extending over two years at least) and rejected by the 
Lords at each of the three sessions, shall become law. The 
House of Lords is thus left with only a “ suspensive veto ” of 
legislation. 

The hereditary House of Lords is so frankly an anachronism 
in democratic Great Britain that from time to time various pro¬ 
position of posals have been made for its “ mending or ending.” 
the House of Many reformers would like to see it become an elec¬ 
tive upper chamber like the French and Ameri¬ 
can Senates. Some radicals would abolish the House of Lords 


1 See page 278. 


Government of the United Kingdom 435 


altogether, thus doing away with the bicameral system. There 
seems reason to believe, however, that in one form or another 
it will survive for many years. Birth and 
family still count for much in British society, 
and the average citizen retains a profound 
^respect for the aristocracy. 

The House of Commons consists of six 
hundred and fifteen members, chosen by univer- 
sal suffrage from equal electoral The House 
districts in Great Britain and of c° mm oas 
in Ireland. Commoners serve for five years, 
which is the maximum life of a single Parlia¬ 
ment. This period is curtailed whenever the 
Crown, on the advice of its ministers, dis¬ 
solves the House of Commons and orders a 
new general election. Voting does not take 
place on one day throughout the United 
Kingdom; it may extend over as much as two 
weeks. Nor need a candidate be a resident of 
the district which he proposes to represent. 

Defeat in one constituency, therefore, does not 
necessarily exclude a man from Parliament; 
he may always “ stand ” for another constitu¬ 
ency. Prominent politicians, as a rule, retain 
seats in the House of Commons year after year. 

The property qualification for members of the 
House of Commons has been abolished, and 
since 1911 they have received salaries. 

Parliament works through a committee known 
as the cabinet. 1 This body exists purely by 
custom and has no place whatever in the 
written constitution of the United Kingdom. 

The cabinet usually includes about twenty HouSE OF CoM _ 
commoners and lords, who belong to the party M ons Mace 

1 See page 221. The terms “cabinet” and “ministry” are used interchangeably. 
The ministry, however, contains a large number of administrative officers who do 
not attend cabinet meetings. 




The cabinet 


436 United Kingdom and British Empire 

in power. During the World War, however, a “ coalition ” 
cabinet, representing both parties, carried on the govern¬ 
ment. Members of the cabinet are selected by 
a caucus of the majority party in Parliament, 
always, of course, with the approval of the prime minister, 
who is the recognized leader of the party. The cabinet acts 
together in all matters, thus presenting a united front to 
Parliament and the country. 

The cabinet shapes legislation, determines policy, and ad¬ 
ministers the laws. In secret sessions it drafts the more im- 
Cabinet portant measures to be laid before the House of 
government Commons. That body may amend bills thus 
presented to it, but amendments are usually few and unim¬ 
portant. Should a cabinet measure fail to pass the Commons, 
or should the Commons vote a resolution of “ no confidence,” 
custom requires the cabinet to resign or “ go to the country.” 
In the former case, the king “ sends for ” the leader of the 
opposite party and invites him to form a cabinet which will 
have the support of the Commons. In the latter case, the king 
dissolves Parliament and calls a general election. The return 
of a majority favorable to the cabinet permits it to remain in 
office; otherwise the prime minister and his associates give way 
to a cabinet formed by the Opposition. 

However powerful, the cabinet is not an irresponsible oli¬ 
garchy. Public opinion prevails in Great Britain as in other 
Public opinion democratic countries. Proposals for new legis- 
and the lation, as a rule, are thoroughly discussed in news¬ 
papers and on the platform before and after their 
submission by the cabinet to the House of Commons. No 
cabinet would think of backing a measure which in its judg¬ 
ment was not favored by the great body of the electorate. As 
has been noted, general elections must be held at least every 
five years and may be held at any time in order to secure an 
expression of the popular will. Furthermore, a defeat at a 
general election or a defeat or vote of censure in the House 
of Commons is not always necessary for the downfall of a 
cabinet. The prime minister sometimes resigns office even 


437 


Ireland and the Irish Question 

when he retains a majority in the Commons, if he feels that 
his policies are no longer acceptable to the country at large. 
Lord Rosebery did this in 1895, and so did Mr. Balfour ten 
years later. Public opinion thus affects all legislative measures 
and determines the rise and fall of cabinets. 

The Liberals and Tories 1 continued in control of Parliament 
throughout the nineteenth century. The twentieth century has 
seen the rise of the Labor Party, which in 1924 Political 
became strong enough to form a cabinet and for P arties 
a time to conduct the government. From the middle ’eighties 
the Irish Nationalists, who advocated Home Rule for Ireland, 
formed an important minority party, usually in alliance with 
the Liberals. The Nationalists, however, gave way to the 
Sinn Feiners, whose program was a completely independent 
Ireland. 

114 . Ireland and the Irish Question 

Nature has been less favorable to Ireland than to Great 

Britain. Communication between different parts of the 

island is interrupted by numerous lakes, large , , , 

. , , , . . . , ° Ireland 

areas of bog and marsh, and isolated groups of 

mountains. s The Shannon forms the only navigable river. 
A moist climate, resulting in an average of over two hundred 
rainy days in the year, makes much of the soil too wet for 
the cultivation of cereals. The green meadows of Ireland, 
which give it the name of the Emerald Isle, are consequently 
better adapted to cattle raising and dairy pursuits than to 
farming. The natural resources of the country in coal and 
minerals are very limited. '>It also suffers from a remote posi¬ 
tion on the western margin of Europe, with Great Britain in a 
position to intercept its Continental trade. The relative back¬ 
wardness of Ireland, agriculturally, industrially, and commer¬ 
cially, provides a partial explanation for its failure to keep pace 
with the rest of the United Kingdom in wealth and population. 

The people of Ireland are commonly known as Celts. This 

1 Since 1886 often called Unionists, because they oppose Home Rule and desire 
to retain the union of Great Britain and Ireland under a common Parliament 


438 United Kingdom and British Empire 


The Irish 


only means that, like the Welsh, they speak a Celtic language. 
The Romans never attempted to conquer the aboriginal in¬ 
habitants of Ireland. The Northmen in the ninth 
century overran part of it, settling chiefly along the 
coast, where they founded Dublin and Limerick. Throughout 
the Middle Ages most of the island remained divided among 
numerous clans and tribes. Irish history during this period is 
a confused record of the struggles for ascendancy between 
the O’Neills of Ulster, the O’Connors of Connaught, the 
McCarthys of Munster, and other native chieftains. > 

The English entered Ireland during the reign of Henry II 
in the twelfth century. They first occupied the region around 
The English Dublin, which received the name of the Pale. 1 
m Ireland Later sovereigns, especially Henry VIII and 
Queen Elizabeth, extended English dominion throughout the 
island and sought to Anglicize it by introducing the English 
language, the Common Law, and the Anglican Church. The 
Irish, however, would not give up their own Celtic speech, their 
tribal customs, and their Roman Catholic faith. Ireland con¬ 
stantly seethed with rebellion, and it required the iron hand of 
Oliver Cromwell to bring peace to the distracted country. At 
the time of the “ Glorious Revolution ” the Roman Catholic 
Irish espoused the side of James II, but William of Orange 
(William III) completely defeated James II at the battle of the 
Boyne in 1690. For the next century Ireland remained quiescent 
under alien rule. 

The government of England in its efforts to subdue Ireland 
early adopted the policy of colonizing parts of it with immi- 
Land con- grants, who would be more tractable than the 
fiscations natives. Early in the reign of James I Protestant 
Scotch and English were settled in the province of Ulster, where 
they received ample estates and privileges. After Cromwell’s 
pacification of Ireland, other “ plantations ” of Englishmen 
took place in Leinster and Munster. William III subsequently 
rewarded his adherents by granting them more than a million 
acres of Irish soil. 

1 See the" map on page 165. 


439 


Ireland and the Irish Question 

These confiscations gave rise to an acute agrarian problem in 
Ireland. Much of the country belonged to the heirs and suc¬ 
cessors of the Englishmen who had received Absentee 
Irish estates. They lived as a rule in England, la ndiordism 
seldom or never visited Ireland, and took no interest in the 
welfare of the Irish tenantry. The management of their 
property was left to hard-hearted agents, who seized every 
opportunity to raise the rents of tenants. 

Such opportunities constantly arose. There were few ways 
of earning a living in Ireland except from the soil, and keen 
competition among the peasantry for farms forced “ Rack- 
up rentals to an exorbitant amount. The land- renting” 
lord, as a rule, received everything above a bare subsistence 
for the tenant and his family. “ Rack-renting ” increased the 
misery of the peasants. All improvements on a farm had to 
be made by the tenant, but if he made them his rent was im¬ 
mediately raised. Refusal to pay it meant eviction from his 
cottage home. No wonder that under this system the soil was 
wretchedly cultivated. 

Year after year Irish peasants sank deeper in poverty. The 
high rents and the scanty yield of the ill-used soil kept them 
constantly on the verge of starvation. They did The Potato 
starve whenever there was a failure of the potato Famme 
crop, on which they chiefly relied for food. 1 Conditions were 
worst during the Potato Famine of 1846-1847. Eighty thousand 

persons, it is estimated, perished at this time, in spite of charity 
and government aid. The survivors emigrated in great numbers 
to America. Within four years the population of the country 
decreased by more than a million. The decline continued to 
the end of the nineteenth century, until Ireland had lost by 
mortality and emigration half of its people. 

Many years elapsed before the British government made a 
resolute attempt to remedy agrarian distress in Ireland. Glad¬ 
stone’s Land Act in 1881 marks the first con- Land 
structive legislation to meet the Irish demand le s islation 
for the “ three F’s ”—fair rent (a rent fixed by public authority 

1 The potato had been introduced into Ireland from America. 


44 ° United Kingdom and British Empire 


instead of by competition), fixity of tenure (the right of a peasant 
to hold his land as long as he paid rent), and free sale (his right 
to sell to his successor any improvements made by him). The 
Land Purchase Acts, passed by the Conservative Party in 1891 
and 1903, create a state fund from which tenants may borrow 
money on easy terms to buy their holdings. Thousands of Irish¬ 
men have already availed themselves of this opportunity to get 
rid of the hated landlords and become independent proprietors. 
The agrarian problem in Ireland bids fair soon to be solved. 

The religious problem has already been solved. Ireland, it 
will be remembered, did not become Protestant at the time of 
Disestablish- the Reformation, and to this day three-fourths of 
ment, 1869 the population remain attached to the Roman 
Catholic faith. Nevertheless, Irish Catholics had to pay 
tithes for the support of the Anglican Church in Ireland, until 
after the middle of the nineteenth century. Gladstone’s first 
ministry removed this grievance by disestablishing the Angli¬ 
can Church in Ireland. Disestablishment meant that Ireland 
would no longer have a state church to which all the people,'- 
irrespective of their religious beliefs, were obliged to contribute. 

The third problem is that of Home Rule. Since the Act of 
Union in 1801, Ireland has continued to be ruled by the British 
Parliament, in which the English and Scots hold an 
overwhelming majority. Irishmen objected to this 
arrangement and demanded the restoration of the former Irish 
Parliament, which sat in Dublin. The first leader of the Home 
Rule agitation was the celebrated orator and patriot, Daniel 
O’Connell. His failure to secure by constitutional means the 
repeal of the Act of Union led to the formation of a Young 
Ireland party, which unsuccessfully imitated the Continental 
revolutions of 1848. About twenty years later Irish-Americans 
organized the Fenian Brotherhood, a secret revolutionary 
society. Fenians in America tried to invade Canada, while 
those in Ireland fomented riots, blew up public buildings, and 
murdered officials. Terrorism failed, as always, but it at least 
kept the attention of British statesmen fixed on the perennial 
Irish Question. 


Home Rule 


44 i 


Ireland and the Irish Question 

During the ’seventies and ’eighties of the last century the 
cause of Home Rule found its ablest advocate in Charles Stewart 
Parnell. He was a landlord and a Protestant, Home Rule 
but nevertheless won the enthusiastic support of bills 
all Irish patriots. Parnell took the leadership of the Irish 
Nationalists, a political party devoted to Home Rule. / When 
Gladstone entered upon his third ministry in 1886, the Nation¬ 
alists were numerous enough to hold the balance of power in 
the House of Commons. Gladstone could only secure their 
support by introducing a Home 
Rule Bill. So bitter was the 
opposition to it that nearly a 
hundred Liberals deserted their 
party and joined the Conserva¬ 
tives, thus defeating the measure. 

In 1893 the “ Grand Old Man,” 
now premier for the fourth time, 
brought in his second Home 
Rule Bill. It passed the Com¬ 
mons but met defeat in the 
Lords. Mr. Asquith’s Liberal 
ministry subsequently intro¬ 
duced a third Home Rule Bill. 

Having thrice passed the House 
of Commons, it became a law in 
1914, notwithstanding its rejec¬ 
tion by the House of Lords. 

War, however, suspended the operation of the measure. It 
proved to be so unpopular with all classes of Irishmen that 
in 1920, Mr. Lloyd George secured the passage by Parliament 
of still another Home Rule Bill. This measure provided for 
the creation of two legislative bodies, one in the north of 
Ireland (Ulster) and one in the south, with a council selected 
by the two legislatures to form a connecting link between 
them. The Irish parliaments were to control all local matters, 
most of the administrative machinery except the army and 
navy, and were to have powers over taxation equivalent to 



Charles Stewart Parnell 


The outbreak of the World 


442 United Kingdom and British Empire 


those of state legislatures in the United States. Had such a 
compromise gone into effect, the representation of Ireland in the 
British Parliament would have been reduced to forty. 

The recent land legislation, disestablishment, and the Home 
Rule bills sufficiently indicated the desire of liberal-minded 
Britishers to do the right thing by Ireland. Never¬ 
theless, there was still an Irish Question. The an¬ 
swer to it was complicated by the existence in Ulster of a part of 
Ireland which is not truly Irish. ) < 'More than half of the people 
of Ulster are descendants of Protestant immigrants during the 
seventeenth century. It was these Orangemen, as they called 
themselves because they adhered to William of Orange, who over¬ 
threw James II and his Irish army at the famous battle of the 
Boyne. Since then there has been only antipathy between 
Ulster and the rest of the Emerald Isle. Rightly or wrongly, the 
Ulsterites believed that with Home Rule the Catholic majority in 
an Irish Parliament would exclude them from political life, tax 
them excessively, and deprive them of religious liberty. They 
preferred, therefore, to retain the Act of Union, or else to have a 
separate parliament of their own. 

Meanwhile, an agitation in favor of complete independence 

had made rapid progress in the rest of Ireland. It owed much 

to a group of quiet scholars, who devoted them- 
The Sinn Fein . & 1 . 

selves to the revival ot Irish literature, the old 
Irish language (Erse), and the sentiment of Irish nationality. 
This national movement gave birth to the Sinn Fein 1 Party. 
The members would have nothing to do with Home Rule and 
insisted upon the entire separation of Ireland from Great Britain. 
In the spring of 1916 they allied themselves with radical working¬ 
men in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic. British troops 
put down the insurrection and executed some of its leaders. 
The Sinn Feiners secured nearly all the Irish representation 
in Parliament at the general election in 1918, but refused to 
take their seats at Westminster. Members of the organization 
entered upon negotiations with Great Britain in the effort to 
secure complete self-government for Ireland. 

1 Irish for “Ourselves alone.” 



















































































































* 






I 





























s 















443 


Extension of the British Empire 

These negotiations have now been crowned with success. 
Their result, in 1922, was the creation of the Irish Free State, 
with its capital at Dublin/^Great Britain grants Irish Free 
to it the same measure of freedom that is enjoyed state 
by Canada and other self-governing Dominions of the British 
Empire. Ulster, however, has insisted upon exclusion from the 
Free State and maintains its own “Government of Northern 
Ireland,” as provided for in the Home Rule Act of 1920. The 
Irish have thus secured the right to govern themselves, but 
Great Britain still keeps some measure of control over them in 
military and international matters. ^ 

115 . Extension of the British Empire 

The United Kingdom is the cradle and present center of the 
British Empire. That empire is of comparatively recent origin. 
In 1600 England did not possess a mile of foreign ^ iggg 
territory, excepting the Channel Islands. Before 
the end of the seventeenth century the foundations of the 
empire were laid all the world over. Valuable trading sta¬ 
tions had been secured in India and the East Indies, on the 
coast of Africa, and in the West Indies, while many settlements 
had been planted along the eastern shores of North America. 

Thi’s first period of imperial history was marked by three wars 
between England and Holland. 1 All the fighting took place on 
the sea. Neither side could claim a decided victory, but the 
Dutch had to surrender the colony of New Amsterdam and to 
admit the maritime supremacy of England. 

The next period of imperial history saw the long struggle 
between Great Britain and France, which has been called a 
second Hundred Years’ War. 2 Its outcome dis- Between 1689 
sipated French dreams of dominion in India and and 1783 
Canada and established British sea-power more firmly than ever. 
As an offset to these gains, Great Britain lost the Thirteen 
Colonies — the “one disruption” of her empire. 

1 The Dutch Wars of 1652-1654, 1665-1667, and 1672-1674. 

2 See page 260 and note 1. 


444 United Kingdom and British Empire 

The wars of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era only con¬ 
firmed Great Britain’s mastery of the ocean, and after Lord 
Between 1783 Nelson’s victories she utilized her naval superiority 
and 1815 to appropriate most of the remaining French 
colonies. The dependence of Holland on France enabled the 
British to seize the Dutch colonies of Guiana, Ceylon, and South 
Africa (Cape of Good Hope). Their colonization of Australia 
also began during this third period of imperial history. 

The British Empire continued to expand throughout the 

Since 1815 P ast centur F in India, Africa, Australia, North 
America, and the islands of the seas. The Union 
Jack now floats over a quarter of the land surface of the 
globe. 1 k 


116. Organization of the British Empire 

Unlike most of the great empires of the past, which stretched 
Sea-power continuously on land, the British Empire is scat- 
and the tered over all the continents, and its several states 

empire are separated from one another by all the great 

oceans of the world. British trade routes and lines of communi- 


1 Chief British Possessions in 1914 

Europe: The United Kingdom, Gibraltar, Malta. 

Africa: Ascension Island, St. Helena, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast Colony, 
Ashanti, Northern Territories, Nigeria, Union of South Africa (Cape of Good Hope, 
Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal), Basutoland, Swaziland, Bechuanaland Pro¬ 
tectorate, Rhodesia, Nyasaland Protectorate, Zanzibar, British East Africa, Uganda 
Protectorate, British Somaliland, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Egypt, Mauritius, 
Seychelles. 

Asia: Cyprus, Aden, Sokotra, Perim, Ceylon, British India (Madras, Bombay, 
Bengal, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Punjab, Behar and Orissa, Cen¬ 
tral Provinces and Berar, Northwest Frontier Province, Ajmer-Merwara, 
Coorg, Delhi, Baluchistan, Assam, Burma, Andaman and Nicobar Islands), 
Feudatory Indian States, Malay States, Straits Settlements, Hongkong, Weihaiwei. 

Oceania: British North Borneo, Sarawak, Papua or British New Guinea, Aus¬ 
tralian Commonwealth (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, 
Western Australia, Tasmania), New Zealand, Fiji Islands, Tonga Islands, Cook 
Islands, Gilbert Islands. 

America: Newfoundland and Labrador, Dominion of Canada (Prince Edward 
Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, 
Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Mackenzie, Franklin, Keewatin), Bermudas, 
British West Indies (Bahamas, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, 
Barbados, Trinidad, Tobago), British Honduras, British Guiana, Falkland Islands. 


445 


Organization of the British Empire 

cation by steamship and submarine cable lie across thousands 
of miles of water. Without sea-power the empire could not be 
preserved. It would break into fragments, some becoming 
independent countries and others falling a prey to their stronger 
neighbors. 

Sea-power depends primarily on superiority of naval force, 
which the British secured by their maritime warfare with the 
Dutch and French in the seventeenth, eighteenth, The British 
and nineteenth centuries. r The World War, re- navy 
suiting in the capture or destruction of most of the German 
fleet, confirmed Great Britain’s position as mistress of the seas. 
This position, however, she voluntarily surrendered in 1922 by 
her agreements (in company with the United States, France, 
Italy, and Japan) at the Washington Conference on the Limi¬ 
tation of Armament. 

Sea-power is also dependent to some degree upon the existence 
of naval bases, where warships may obtain coal and other sup¬ 
plies. Great Britain possesses them at convenient British naval 
intervals on nearly all the great trade routes. bases 
Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus give her control of the Mediter¬ 
ranean. Suez, Aden, and various islands in the Indian Ocean 
guard the shortest route to India and Australia. In the Far 
East she has Singapore, Hongkong, Weihaiwei, and other 
important ports. Her African stations include the islands of 
Ascension, St. Helena, Mauritius, and Seychelles. In American 
waters the Bermudas and the British West Indies provide 
stations for military and commercial purposes, all the more 
valuable since the completion of the Panama Canal. These 
naval bases are the real sea-links of the empire. 

The population of the British Empire, excluding the United 

Kingdom, is estimated at 400,000,000. Of these, about 20,- 

000,000 are “colonials,” the descendants of « colonials” 

English, French, Dutch, and Spanish immigrants, and 

** natives ^ 

The other inhabitants are “ natives ” — a com¬ 
prehensive term to include the peoples of India, together with 
Malays, Chinese, Polynesians, Arabs, negroes, and American 
Indians. All the races of man, all stages of culture from sav- 


446 United Kingdom and British Empire 

agery to civilization, all the principal religions, and nearly 
all the principal languages, of mankind are represented in the 
British possessions. 

The word empire usually suggests the autocratic rule of 
conquerors over subjects. Autocracy indeed exists in the 
British im- British Empire, for the “ natives,” who comprise 
periahsm nineteen-twentieths of the population, have as yet 

little or no voice in the management of their own concerns. On 
the whole, Great Britain rules them wisely, justly, even benevo¬ 
lently. She maintains peace — the Pax Britannica — keeps 
domestic order, abolishes such evil customs as slavery, can¬ 
nibalism, and human sacrifice, introduces systems of education 
and sanitation, and spends large sums for the development of 
the natural resources of teach possession. More and more it 
becomes the conscious purpose of Great Britain to train the 
more advanced of her native subjects in democracy, so that they 
may ultimately take a place among the great self-governing 
peoples of the empire. 1 

As respects government, India stands by itself. British 
India, which includes two-thirds of the area of the country and 
India three-fourths of the population, is ruled directly 

from London through a cabinet officer called the 
Secretary of State for India. The actual administration rests 
in the hands of an appointive viceroy, assisted by two coun¬ 
cils and the officials of the Indian Civil Service. The re¬ 
mainder of India consists of native or feudatory states, about 
seven hundred in number. These continue to be ruled by their 
own princes, under the oversight and protection of Great Britain. 

Besides the feudatory states of India, Great Britain has 
numerous protectorates in Africa, including Egypt, the Anglo- 
Protectorates Egyptian Sudan, and various tropical districts 
and spheres valuable for their productions but generally unfit 
of influence f or jr ur0 p ean settlement. She also possesses 
certain spheres of influence in Africa and other parts of the 
world, where foreign countries agree not to acquire territory or 
control, either by treaty or annexation. 

1 Read Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The White Man's Burden. 





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447 


Organization of the British Empire 

In the seventeenth century trading companies chartered by 
the Crown established nearly all the American colonies of 
Great Britain and laid the foundation of her chartered 
Indian dominions. In the nineteenth century com P anies 
similar chartered trading companies carried the British flag 
into the interior of Africa and among the islands of the Pacific. 
The British South Africa Company (1889), organized by Cecil 
Rhodes, still controls the vast tract of territory called Rhodesia. 
Similarly, the British North Borneo Company (1882) governs 
North Borneo, though this country has now been declared a 
protectorate. 

The most numerous group of British possessions is composed 
of the Crown colonies. They are all under governors appointed 
by the Crown. In a few Crown colonies the Crown 
governor exercises entire authority, both legis- colonies 
lative and executive; in the others he is assisted by councils 
which are sometimes nominated by the Crown and sometimes 
selected by the colonists. This system of government resembles 
that of the royal colonies in America before the Revolution. 1 
The Crown colonies lie chiefly within the tropics and contain 
relatively few English-speaking inhabitants. Examples are 
the British West Indies, British Guiana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, 
Ceylon, and the Straits Settlements. 

The group of self-governing colonies is small in number, but 
it includes Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, 
and South Africa. Their government closely Seif-govern- 
parallels that of the United Kingdom. In each mg colomes 
colony the Crown is represented by a governor or governor- 
general; the House of Lords, by an upper chamber; and the 
House of Commons, by a popularly elected assembly. Each 
one has also a prime minister and the cabinet system. Great 
Britain controls the foreign relations of these five colonies, but 
otherwise allows them practically complete independence in 
matters of legislation. Without interference, they tax them¬ 
selves, impose tariff duties, even on British goods, control im¬ 
migration, raise their own armies, support their own navies, 

1 See page 254. 


448 United Kingdom and British Empire 

and have their own national flags. They are, in fact, 

“ colonial nations.’’ 

The nineteenth century was well advanced before Great ' 
Britain learned the right policy to adopt toward the “ colonials ” 
British colo- in North America, Australasia and South Africa, 
nial policy The rising tide of democratic sentiment, as seen in 
the reform of parliamentary representation, more than any¬ 
thing else stirred the British people to extend full rights to 
their colonies. Political emancipation at home had a natural 
result in political emancipation abroad. Canada first received 
self-government in the ’forties of the last century, and since then 
Great Britain has cordially bestowed the same precious gift 
upon her Australasian and South African dominions. Though 
virtually independent, they continue to enjoy the protection of 
the British Empire and to share in its glory. 

This change of British colonial policy, which has converted 
so much of the empire into an alliance of free states, is one of 
Greater the outstanding facts of modern history. It was 
Britain the rare g 00 d fortune of Great Britain to secure 

in the territories of her self-governing colonies practically all 
the available area of the world with a climate and productions 
similar to those of the home land and not too thickly occupied 
by native peoples. Their vast extent, enormous resources, and 
rapidly growing population give promise of unlimited devel¬ 
opment in the future. They form a Greater Britain for the 
perpetuation through the ages of the language, laws, and in¬ 
stitutions of the mother country. 

117 . Imperial Federation 

Great Britain did not set out deliberately to conquer a fourth 
of the globe. Many of her acquisitions were made reluctantly 
The “ little and often as an incident to the Continental wars 
Englanders” U p 0n w hich she engaged. In fact, colonial ex¬ 
pansion was either distasteful or indifferent to most English¬ 
men. The French statesman, Turgot, 1 had compared colonies 
to fruits which, when ripe, drop from the parent tree, and the 

1 See page 299. 


Imperial Federation 449 

loss of the Thirteen Colonies by Great Britain apparently con¬ 
firmed the truth of this maxim. It seemed the height of un¬ 
wisdom for the British people to tax themselves for the support 
and protection of colonies destined soon to become independent. 
Furthermore, Adam Smith and other laissez-faire 1 economists, 
whose views increasingly affected public opinion, taught that 
colonies were really unnecessary to national prosperity. The 
United States had continued to trade heavily with Great Britain 
after securing independence. 2 If trade with the colonies con¬ 
tinued, it mattered little or not whether the Union Jack flew 
over them. Such arguments had great influence upon the 
Liberal Party, which controlled the British government through 
so much of the nineteenth century. Gladstone and his fol¬ 
lowers were frankly “ little Englanders/’ who turned their eyes 
away from colonial enterprise and devoted themselves to 
domestic reforms. 

The last fifty years have witnessed a profound change in 
Great Britain’s attitude toward her colonies. Rapid transporta¬ 
tion by railways and steamships, together with The 
telegraphs and submarine cables, swept away the imperialists 
barriers of distance between the mother land and her overseas 
offspring. It was vastly easier than ever before to secure their 
cooperation. A change in the international situation likewise 
made their cooperation seem more desirable than ever before. 
After 1871 Great Britain occupied a position of “ splendid 
isolation ” in European politics, without an ally on the Conti¬ 
nent. The expansion of Russia in Asia, threatening India, the 
rise of Japan to a predominant position in the Far East, and 
above all, the growing competition of Germany in commerce, 
colonies, and naval armaments troubled British statesmen, who 
feared that further isolation might spell their country’s ruin. 
Instead of valuing colonial possessions lightly, these were now 
regarded as potential assets on which Great Britain might rely 
in time of war. The Conservative Party, under Disraeli, 
especially fostered this new imperial sentiment, though in recent 
years the Liberals also have worked to strengthen the bonds 

1 See page 286. 2 See page 270. 


45° United Kingdom and British Empire 

of union between the mother country and her daughter 
colonies. 

The British Empire, as at present constituted, is a complex 
and apparently inharmonious organization of protectorates, 
Imperial Crown colonies, self-governing Dominions, and 
conferences Indian states. The empire lacks a central body 
representing all its members and capable of united action. 
Steps in the direction of closer union have been taken by means 
of imperial conferences. The first was held at London in 1887, 
on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebration of the 
fiftieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, and was at¬ 
tended by representatives of the Dominions. Representatives of 
India also appeared at the last conference in 1921. Naval and 
military defense, tariffs, and other matters of common concern 
are discussed at these periodical gatherings. They make, there¬ 
fore, for a better understanding between Great Britain and her 
dependencies. 

Further steps toward uniting the British Empire will doubtless 
be taken in the immediate future. The problem of federation, 
The problem however, bristles with difficulties. As respects 
of federation Dominions and India, how devise a workable 
scheme which will give them a voice in deciding the foreign policy 
of the empire and at the same time a fair share of the burden of 
its defense? In regard to Great Britain, the “ predominant 
partner,” how reconcile her world-wide interests with the purely 
local interests of her dependencies? Representation of the 
colonies in a federal parliament to be created or in the existing 
Parliament of the United Kingdom has been suggested in answer 
to these questions; but as yet the suggestion finds little favor. 
The more probable development seems to be some sort of 
“ Britannic Alliance,” in which Great Britain shall be first 
among equals. 

But the machinery of federation is a secondary matter, as 
long as the British Empire is one in spirit. The defects of its 
_ . , . x body are compensated for by the unity of its soul. 

The real strength of the bonds between Great 
Britain and her children overseas was first shown during the 


Imperial Federation 451 

Boer War of 1899 , when they rallied loyally to her support. 
During the World War both “ colonials ” and “ natives ” made 
huge contributions in money, food, ships, and men to Great 
Britain in her hour of need. The British Empire, in the 
words of Burke, is held together “ by the close affection 
which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from 
similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which, 
though light as air, are as strong as links of iron.” 1 

Studies 

1. “Doubtless the most significant and momentous fact of modem history is 
the wide diffusion of the English race, the sweep of its commerce, the dominance of 
its institutions, its imperial control of the destinies of half the globe.” Comment 
on this statement. 2. On the, map, facing page 420, name the water boundaries of 
the British Isles. 3. “The simple and obvious fact that Great Britain is an island 
has woven itself in a thousand ways into the texture of English history.” Illustrate 
this statement. 4. Distinguish between England, Great Britain, the United 
Kingdom, and the British Empire. 5. Compare the area of England with that of 
New York, of Wales with that of Massachusetts, and of Scotland with that of 
South Carolina. 6. Explain the royal, aristocratic, and democratic elements, 
respectively, in the British system of government. 7. Show that in Great Britain 
“ the king reigns, but does not govern.” 8. Why is the British government some¬ 
times called a *' crowned republic”? 9. Contrast the unlimited powers of the 
British Parliament with the limited powers of the American Congress. 10. Why 
has the House of Lords been called “ the Westminster Abbey of living celebrities”? 
11. Mention some noteworthy differences between the British cabinet and the 
American cabinet. 12. How does the British system of government represent a 
“union of powers,” as contrasted with the American system of a “separation of 
powers?” 13. Why has England been called the “mother of parliaments”? 
14. “The Irish Question is the Achilles’s heel of the British Empire.” What does 
this statement mean? 15. “Without Drake, Raleigh, Clive, and Gordon, English 
history of the last three centuries is not English history at all.” Comment on 
this statement. 16. On the map between pages 446 and 447, locate the self-govern¬ 
ing colonies, the more important Crown colonies, the chartered companies, and th'* 
protectorates of the British Empire. 

1 Read Kipling’s Recessional. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC 

118 . Land and People of France 

France possesses the best situation in Europe, for it lies at 
the western edge of the Continent between the Mediterranean 
Situation and and the Atlantic, the busiest bodies of water in 
boundaries the world. Two great natural highways connect 
them. The one, following the Rhone and Saone rivers, gains 
the valley of the Seine; the other, skirting the southern base 
of the Cevennes mountains, reaches the Bay of Biscay by way 
of the Garonne valley. Many other navigable rivers penetrate 
deeply into the country and bring all parts of it together. 
The natural boundaries of France also make for unity. It is 
enclosed on two sides by the ocean, and elsewhere, in large 
part, by mountains. The Pyrenees form a rampart on the 
southwest against Spain; the Alps, on the southeast against 
Italy; and the Jura, on the east against Switzerland. The 
recovery of Alsace, as a result of the World War, once more 
makes the Rhine the barrier between France and part of Ger¬ 
many. Only the. northeastern boundary of France is con¬ 
ventional and unprotected by nature. 

France consists of two dissimilar physical regions. The 
great European plain occupies fully three-fourths of the total 
Topography area. In the center, east, and southeast the 
and climate lowlands rise into plateaus and mountains. The 
topography of France thus offers no obstacle to the prevailing 
“westerlies,” which are enabled to distribute their abundant 
moisture somewhat evenly over the country. The climate of 
France, on the whole, is temperate. The fierce cold of Switzer¬ 
land, the depressing fogs of Germany, and the mists and per- 

452 


453 


Land and People of France 

petual dampness of the British Isles are unknown to a land 
which a medieval poet well christened France la Douce — 
Gentle France. 

The fertile soil of France makes it possible for fully one-half 
of the inhabitants to live by agriculture. Farms are often 
very small, owing to the fact that after the death Natural 
of parents the land is divided equally among the resources 
heirs. The typical agricultural products are wheat and the 
vine. More wheat is produced in France than in any other 
European country except Russia, and more grapes are raised 
there than in any other country of the world. In minerals, 
France is decidedly inferior to either England or Germany. 
The principal coal beds are near the Belgian border; the richest 
iron mines are in Lorraine. The fisheries, including both those 
in home waters and off Newfoundland, must be included among 
the natural resources of France. 

The population of France during the nineteenth century 
increased to a less extent than that of any other European 
country, except Ireland. The decline of the birth- Population 
rate has been accompanied, however, by a lessened 
death-rate, so that the population remains practically station¬ 
ary (about 39,000,000 in 1914). What keeps French families 
small seems to be chiefly the universal desire to maintain a 
high standard of comfort as respects food, clothing, housing, 
and other necessaries of life. This situation has a military 
significance, in view of the rapid increase of the German people. 
Germany, which was not much more populous than France 
in 1871, was over one and a half times as populous in 1914. 
“Every year we win a battle against France,” said the 
famous General Moltke. 

France has been less affected than other modern industrial 
nations by the tendency of population to concentrate in cities. 
While fully sixty per cent of the German people Rural and 
and seventy-five per cent of the British people urban 
are now city dwellers, the French continue to live population 
chiefly in agricultural villages and small towns. There are 
only about a dozen cities in France having more than one 


454 The Third French Republic 



The Place de la Concorde 













































































































































































































































































Land and People of France 455 

hundred thousand inhabitants. Of these, the largest are 
Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles. 

The average Frenchman is very thrifty. His small savings 
amount to an immense sum in the aggregate. It was the well 

stocked “woolen stocking” of the French peasant ,, 

. . , Till rr Wealth 

which enabled the government to pay on the 

German indemnity 1 within little more than two years, and 

subsequently to make enormous loans to Russia and other 

countries. The investments of France in foreign stocks and 

bonds fell not far short of ten billion dollars in 1914. This 

amount has now been considerably increased by her advances 

to her allies during the war. France is still one of the greatest 

creditors in the world. 

Nations, like individuals, possess their special qualities, 
particularly old nations such as France. The French people, 
in the first place, are artistically gifted. An French 
appreciation of the beautiful in all its forms is culture 
general among them. Their leadership in the fine arts has 
been acknowledged since the age of Louis XIV. 2 In the second 
place, the French are very appreciative of intellectual achieve¬ 
ment. They give a high place among their national heroes to 
great scholars, philosophers, scientists, artists, and men of 
letters. No other country boasts such an institution as the 
French Academy, 3 with its forty “ Immortals,” election to whose 
ranks is almost the highest honor a Frenchman can win. In 
the third place, the French are an intensely individualistic 
people. Their history has been a long struggle for liberty, not 
only to govern themselves, but also to think, feel, and speak 
for themselves. Thought and the expression of thought are 
perhaps freer in France than in any other country. It is 
principally for these reasons that she continues to be the artistic 
and intellectual center of the world. 

119 . Republican France, 1871-1914 

The Third French Republic arose in the midst of war. Two 
days after the battle of Sedan, upon the receipt of a dispatch 
1 See page 415. 2 See page 193. 3 See page 192. 


456 The Third French Republic 



from Napoleon III announcing his army captured and himself 

a prisoner, Paris broke out in re¬ 
volt. The empress Eugenie fled 
with her son to England, and the 
absent emperor was deposed as be¬ 
ing responsible for the “ruin, in¬ 
vasion, and dismemberment of the 
country.” The revolutionists then 
The republic set up a provisional 
proclaimed government, republi¬ 
can in character. Similar action 
was taken independently in Lyons, 
Marseilles, Bordeaux, and other 
provincial cities. Paris in 1870 
did not impose a republic upon 
the rest of the country; much of 
urban France declared spontane¬ 
ously for it. The fact is important, 
as helping to explain why the Third 
Republic has lasted so much longer 
than its predecessors. 

The provisional government 
undertook the task of driving 
the Germans from French soil. 
Gambetta, the most prominent 
Republican leader, escaped from 
Peace Paris in a balloon, 

made with roused the fighting 
Germany spirit of the French 
people by his eloquence, and 
carried on for several months a 
brave but futile struggle against 
Colonne Vendome the German enemy. Equally futile 


Set up by Napoleon I in the Place Vend6me. It is 142 feet in height and 13 feet in 
diameter. Like Trajan’s column, of which it is an imitation, the monument is encircled 
with a spiral band of bronze bas-reliefs commemorating the campaign of 1805. The 
summit is surmounted by a statue of the emperor. During the rule of the “communards” 
in 1871 the column was overthrown, but it was subsequently reerected and restored. 




































J 














! 


/ 

















■ ■ 
































v 

7 






























- 









Republican France 457 

were the diplomatic missions which Thiers 1 made to one 
European court after another, to enlist foreign aid for 
France. Paris could not be saved. After the fall of the 
capital an armistice was arranged, in order that the French 
people might elect a National Assembly to treat with Germany. 
The peasants, who formed the great majority of the voters, 
now wanted peace even on unfavorable terms. Accordingly, 
they avoided the Republican ticket as the “war ticket” and 
elected to the National Assembly representatives of the old 
Monarchist parties pledged to conclude peace. This “assembly 
of clod-hoppers,” as the Republicans nicknamed it, promptly 
ratified the humiliating Treaty of Frankfort. 2 

Peace had not been made before France was called upon to 

endure the agonies of a civil conflict. The Commune, 3 or 

municipal council, of Paris fell into the hands of 

radical Republicans, socialists, and anarchists, “ C om- 

who raised the red flag. They set up an in- muna rds ” 

, . 7 , . , , suppressed 

dependent government m the capital and even 

proposed to divide all France into a loose confederation of self- 

governing communes. The French people this time did not 

accept a revolution made in Paris. Loyal troops laid siege to 

the city, entered it after hard fighting, forced their way through 

the barricades, and suppressed the insurrection. The victors 

knew no mercy. Thousands of the “communards” were shot 

without trial, and thousands more were transported to penal 

colonies in the tropics. The events of this “Bloody Week” 

of 1871, like the Reign of Terror, fill a lurid page in French 

history. 

Fortunately for France during these troubled times, she 

possessed a statesman at the head of affairs. Adolphe Thiers 

was seventy-three years old when the Franco- A ^ olphe 

German War broke out. He had long been famous Thiers, 

• 1797-1877 

as a historian of the revolutionary and Napoleonic 
era, as a journalist whose trenchant pen helped to overthrow 
Charles X, as the prime minister of Louis Philippe, and as the 
most effective critic in parliament of Napoleon Ill’s short- 

1 See page 379. 2 See page 415. 3 See page 306. 


458 The Third French Republic 

sighted policies. The downfall of the Second Empire gave 
Thiers a great opportunity, and he embraced it. Appointed 
head of the government by the National Assembly, he negoti¬ 
ated the peace treaty with Germany, put down the “com¬ 
munards,” and raised one billion dollars to pay the indemnity 
and free France from the occupation of the German armies. 
“Liberator of the territory,” the French people gratefully 
acclaimed him. This little old man deserved well of his 
country. 

The National Assembly in 1871 made Thiers “President of 
the Republic.” Nevertheless, a long time elapsed before 
Republic France became republican in much more than 
or name. Two-thirds of the members of the National 

monarchy? Assembly were really attached to monarchical 
principles. In 1873 they forced Thiers to resign in favor of 
Marshal MacMahon, 1 who was to make way for a king as 
soon as one should be chosen. There were three candidates 
for the crown, representing as many Monarchist groups. The 
Imperialists (few in number) supported the Prince Imperial, 
son of Napoleon III. The Orleanists championed the claims 
of the count of Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe. The Legiti¬ 
mists rallied about the count of Chambord, grandson of 
Charles X. But as Thiers declared, three candidates could 
not sit on one throne. The Orleanists and Legitimists finally 
agreed that the count of Chambord, who was childless, should 
become king as “Henry V” and should be succeeded by the 
count of Paris. “Henry V,” however, refused to accept the 
crown unless the National Assembly would abolish the revolu¬ 
tionary tricolor and restore the white flag of the Bourbons, the 
symbol of absolutism and divine right. But even monarchical 
Frenchmen did not want a restoration of the Old Regime, and 
so the provisional republican government was allowed to con¬ 
tinue. 

The failure of the Monarchists in the National Assembly 
to choose a king played into the hands of the Republicans 
under Gambetta. He occupies a place beside Thiers among 

1 See page 4x4. 


Republican France 459 

the founders of the Third Republic. To Gambetta, a republic 
meant the salvation of France, and he made it his mission to 
spread republican ideas among conservative Frenchmen. No 
one could have been better fitted for the work. L - on 
Gambetta’s services during the Franco-German Gambetta, 
War endeared him to the masses, while his 1838-1882 
oratory and vivacious personality fascinated even political 
opponents. More and more people who had hitherto been 
Monarchists, now joined the Republicans, with the result that 
in 1875 France adopted a republican constitution. 

No great enthusiasm for the republic was felt in 1875, except 
among the followers of Gambetta. It had been established 
because, in view of the rivalries between the The Repub _ 
various political groups, it seemed to be the form lican 
of government which divided the French people supremacy 
the least. When the first elections under the new constitution 
took place, the voters chose a Republican Chamber of Deputies. 
The Senate, however, remained Monarchist by a small majority. 
President MacMahon was also a Monarchist. Unable to work 
harmoniously with the Chamber of Deputies, MacMahon 
dissolved it in 1877, but the voters again returned a majority 
of Republican members. Two years later the Senate became 
Republican as well. MacMahon then resigned, and Jules 
Grevy, a life-long Republican, took the presidential office. 

The Republicans since 1879 have remained in control of 
both branches of the legislature and of the presidency. The 
army, formerly officered by men of the upper stabil i ty 
classes, has sometimes threatened the permanence of the Third 
of the Republican regime. During the late Republlc 
’eighties, General Boulanger seemed likely for a time to play 
the role of both Napoleons and to overthrow the government 
by a coup d'etat. His popularity, however, did not prevent his 
trial and condemnation as a public enemy. The Boulanger 
episode resulted in the dismissal of many Monarchist officers 
from the army. The Third Republic has also had to meet the 
opposition of the Roman Catholic clergy, always strongly 
Monarchist in sympathies. Anti-clerical agitation led in 1905 


460 


The Third French Republic 

to the Separation Act, which abolishes the Concordat 1 and 
definitely separates Church and State in France. Neither 
army officers nor clergy now menace the stability of the Third 
Republic. As the World War showed, it enjoys the support 
of practically every Frenchman. 


120. Government of France 


The Constitution of 1875, the last of the many constitutions 
of France since the Revolution, consists of a series of laws 
A parlia- passed by the National Assembly. These laws 
mentary may be, and have been, amended by the two 
republic branches of the legislature in joint session. They 
provide for a parliamentary form of government, which re¬ 
sembles, in many respects, that of the United Kingdom. 

Legislative authority is vested in a Chamber of Deputies, 
containing (1919) 626 members, who are elected for four years 
The leg- by manhood suffrage, and a Senate of 300 members 
isiature chosen indirectly for a term of nine years. The 
two houses have substantially equal powers in introducing and 
amending bills, except money bills, which must emanate from 
the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate has less importance 
than the Chamber of Deputies, because the premier and his 
associates in the ministry are responsible to the latter body. 
The ministry must keep a majority in the Chamber of Deputies 
or resign. 

Executive authority is nominally vested in a president, who 
holds office for seven years. He may be reelected, but this 
The has happened only once. 2 In order to prevent 

president the r j se 0 f some future Louis Napoleon through 
popular election, the constitution prescribes that the president 
shall be chosen by a majority vote of the two branches of the 
legislature in joint session at Versailles. An election is therefore 
a very tame affair, all over in an afternoon. Any citizen, 
except a member of a French royal or imperial family, may 
offer himself for the presidency. The successful candidate is 


1 See page 332. 

2 In the case of President Grevy, reelected in 1885. 


Government of France 


461 


usually a prominent senator or deputy. Whenever the presi¬ 
dential office becomes vacant by the death or resignation of 
the incumbent, his successor must be immediately chosen for 
the full term. The president lives in the beautiful Palais de 
l’Elysee at Paris. He receives a salary of 1,200,000 francs, 
hah of it a compensation for his services and half to meet his 
expenditure for traveling and entertainments. 



Chamber of Deputies, Paris 


This fine structure was built in the eighteenth century as a palace for members of the 
Bourbon-Conde family. It became national property during the French Revolution. The 
fagade, which faces the Pont de la Concorde, is in the style of an ancient temple. 

Like the British sovereign, the French president is largely 
a figurehead. He sends messages to parliament, receives foreign 
visitors, and presides at public functions, but his Position 
powers are very limited. The constitution provides °* e ^® ent 
that every presidential act shall be countersigned presi en 
by some minister, who thereby assumes responsibility for it. 
The president possesses the right, with the consent of the 
Senate, to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies before the expi¬ 
ration of its term and order a new election; but this has been 
done only once. 1 His veto of legislation may be overridden 
1 By President MacMahon in 1877. 


mm 






462 The Third French Republic 

by a simple majority of parliament. When a change of minis¬ 
try occurs, the president chooses a leading parliamentarian to 
be premier and the latter selects his own colleagues. 

The real executive in France, as \n all parliamentary coun¬ 
tries, is the ministry or cabinet. Ministers are almost always 
The members of parliament. They may sit in both 

ministry chambers and may address the legislators as often 

as seems desirable. A minister’s position is no sinecure. Not 
only must he conduct his department, but he must also be 
constantly before parliament to present, explain, and defend 
his measures. Any senator or deputy may direct a formal 
question at a minister on the conduct of his office. Such an 
“interpellation” puts the ministry on the defensive and pre¬ 
cipitates a brisk debate. If the Chamber of Deputies ends by 
passing a vote of “no confidence,” the ministry resigns. 

France has no real parties, but only political groups. The 
elections of 1919, for instance, returned representatives of 
Political nine such groups to the Chamber of Deputies, 

groups The majority of members are Republicans of 

various shades of opinion, ranging from conservatism to radical¬ 
ism. There are several large groups of Socialists, as well as 
a few Monarchists, who would like to restore either the Bour¬ 
bons or the Bonapartes. Following the system in vogue in 
most Continental parliaments, members of the Chamber of 
Deputies occupy seats according to their affiliations. The 
Monarchists sit at the extreme right of the presiding officer, 
and the Socialists at his extreme left. The other and larger 
groups sit in the center of the chamber. This arrangement 
gives rise to the terms Right, Left, and Center, as party desig¬ 
nations. 

The existence of so many political groups explains why 
changes of ministry are frequent in France. No ministry can 
Ministerial arise except one which represents a coalition 
changes (bloc) of several groups; no ministry can five long 
unless it keeps the support of several groups. In fact, it never 
does live long. France since 1875 has averaged more than one 
ministry a year. A ministerial change, however, is far less 


Colonial Expansion of France 463 

significant in France than in Great Britain, owing to the absence 
of one opposition party able to take the reins of government. 
Many members of a defeated ministry are found, as a rule, in 
the ministry which succeeds it, with perhaps a change of port¬ 
folios. Leading politicians may thus remain almost continuously 
in office for a long period. 

It should be noted, finally, that France has a permanent 
body of nearly one million officials, who carry on their adminis¬ 
trative duties unvexed by ministerial “ crises.” The 
This bureaucracy or civil service is especially bureaucracy 
necessary in France, which, as contrasted with the United 
States, forms a highly centralized republic. The systematic 
organization of the country into departements and their sub¬ 
divisions by the French revolutionists and Napoleon 1 has been 
retained to the present time, with the result that the govern¬ 
ment, both national and local, is directed from Paris. The 
state keeps representatives everywhere, and an lpur after an 
order has been given at the capital it can be carried out in the 
remotest hamlet. Such centralization seems curious in so 
democratic a country as France, but it apparently satisfies 
the French demand for order and regularity in the conduct of 
public affairs. 


121 . Colonial Expansion of France 

The Seven Years’ War and the wars of the revolutionary 
and Napoleonic era reduced the once-imposing colonial empire 
of France to small dimensions. Her possessions in Revival of 
1815 included the coast of Senegal in Africa, five colonial 
ports in India, French Guiana in South America, enterpnse 
and a few islands in the West Indies and off the coast 
of Newfoundland. During the nineteenth century, however, 
France took up again the work of empire-building. The reign 
of Louis Philippe saw the difficult conquest of Algeria from the 
warlike Turks, Arabs, and Berbers. Napoleon III annexed 
the Senegal Valley and part of Indo-China. The Third Re¬ 
public, in order to offset the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, embarked 

1 See pages 310 and 331. 


464 The Third French Republic 

still more definitely upon colonial enterprise in many parts of 
the world. 

The most extensive French colonies are those in Africa. 
From Algeria, France has expanded eastward over Tunis, 
Colonial westward over Morocco, and southward into the 

possessions Sahara. Nearly all the vast region between the 
Mediterranean and the Congo is now subject to France. She 
also holds French Somaliland, a strategic point at the entrance 
of the Red Sea, and the large island of Madagascar. In Asia 
she has retained her Indian possessions and has enlarged her 
territories in Indo-China. In Oceania she possesses New 
Caledonia and several archipelagoes. The American colonies of 
France have not been increased since 1815. The area of this 
colonial empire is, roughly speaking, about twenty times that of 
France. Its population about equals that of the home country. 

Nearly all the colonies lie within the tropics. The only 
countries haying a considerable French population are Algeria, 
Colonial ad- Tunis, and New Caledonia. It follows that the 
ministration value to France of her overseas possessions is 
mainly commercial, as a source of raw materials and a field 
for the investment of capital. The World War also demon¬ 
strated their value in furnishing native soldiers and laborers. 
The French government respects the institutions of the in¬ 
habitants and makes every effort to raise their moral and 
economic condition. None of the colonies is self-governing 
in the manner of the British Dominions, but some of them elect 
representatives to the French legislature. Algeria is treated 
in many respects, not as a colony, but as an integral part of 
France. 1 

1 Chief French Possessions in 1914 

Africa: Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, French West Africa (Mauretania, Senegal, 
Upper Senegal and Niger, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Sahara), 
French Equatorial Africa, French Somaliland, Madagascar, Comoro 
Islands, Reunion Island. 

Asia: French India (Mahe, Karikal, Pondicherry, Yanaon, Chandemagore), 
Tonkin, Anam, Laos, Cambodia, Cochin-China, Kwangchauwan. 
Oceania: New Caledonia, Society Islands, Marquesas Islands. 

America: French Guiana, French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinque), Miquelon 
Island, St. Pierre Island. 


Colonial Expansion of France 


465 


Studies 

1. How did the boundaries of France in 1914 differ from its boundaries in 1789? 
2. What is the origin of the names Britanny, Normandy, and Lorraine? 3. Con¬ 
trast the circumstances under which the Third Republic came into existence with 
those leading to the organization of the First and Second Republics. 4. Name 
and explain the different Monarchist groups in France. 5. Distinguish the “ com¬ 
munards’’ from communists. 6. Why may the French government be described as 
a “parliamentary republic”? 7. How is the French Parliament more powerful 
than the Congress of the United States? 8. Compare the position of the Chamber 
of Deputies with that of the House of Commons. 9. Compare the powers of the 
French and American presidents, respectively. 10. Define the terms (a) “inter¬ 
pellation,” ( b) bloc, and (c) “bureaucracy.” 11. How does the party system of 
France differ from that of Great Britain? 12. Discuss the relative importance 
of the British and French colonial empires. 13. Locate on the map the chief 
French possessions enumerated in the foot-note on page 464. 


CHAPTER XVII 


ITALY, SPAIN, AND THE MINOR COUNTRIES OF 
WESTERN EUROPE 

122 . Italy 

The kingdom of Italy ranks next to the French Republic 
among the Latin states of contemporary Europe. The Italian 
Constitution constitution is the royal charter ( Statute ) granted 
of Italy by Charles Albert of Sardinia in 1848, and be¬ 

tween 1859 and 1870 extended by plebiscites to the entire 
peninsula. During these momentous years Italy thus gained 
both national unity and constitutional government. 

Italy has a well developed parliamentary system. Supreme 

authority resides in a parliament of two houses, consisting of 

, an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of 

Italian 

parlia- Deputies. Senators hold office for life. Deputies 

system^ are e ^ ectec ^ ^y popular vote for five years, unless 
a dissolution of parliament shortens their term. 
A ministry or cabinet conducts the government, subject to the 
will of the Chamber of Deputies. When a ministry resigns, 
some party leader is selected by the king to form its successor. 
The king otherwise exerts little influence upon domestic politics. 
He never vetoes bills passed by both branches of the legislature, 
seldom attends cabinet meetings, and appoints to office onlv 
those recommended by his ministers. An Italian monarch 
holds essentially the same ornamental position as a British 
sovereign or a French president. The house of Savoy is very 
popular in Italy, for Victor Emmanuel II, his son Humbert I, 
and Victor Emmanuel III, the present ruler, have shown 
themselves truly democratic and devoted to the welfare of 
their subjects. 


466 


467 


Italy 

Property and educational qualifications for the suffrage 
formerly limited the voters to less than two and a half per cent 
of the population. Laws passed in 1882 and 1912 suffrage 
introduced almost complete manhood suffrage. m Italy 
Only men under thirty years of age, who have neither per¬ 
formed their military service nor learned to read and write, 
are now denied the right to vote. 

The party system of Italy resembles that of France. Political 
groups are numerous, rather loosely organized, and subject 
to constant fluctuation. Only three groups have Italian 
well defined programs and constituencies. The parties 
Republicans, faithful to the traditions of Mazzini and Garibaldi, 
continue to agitate for a republican form of government; 
they are few in number. The Socialists stand for the same 
things as their breth¬ 
ren in other coun¬ 
tries. They find 
recruits chiefly 
among the working¬ 
men of the cities. 

The Catholics or 
Clericals, who were 
allowed by the pope 
to form a separate 
political party only 
as recently as 1919, 
uphold the influence 
of the Church in pol¬ 
itics; their strength 
is among the peasan¬ 
try. The other po¬ 
litical groups differ 
in the main only as they support or oppose the ministry which 
happens to be in power. The elections of 1919 gave to the 
Socialists and Clericals combined a majority of seats in the 
Chamber of Deputies. 

Italian politics have long been complicated by the hostility 









% 



468 


The Vatican, Rome 

_ Tilc P alace of the Vatican, adjoining St. Peter’s, became the fixed residence of the popes after their return from Avignon in 1377. Since the fifteenth century su 
sive popes have reconstructed the original building on a magnificent scale. It contaias thousands of rooms, some of which are used as art galleries, museums 
libraries. The palace gardens are extensive and beautiful. 









































































































































































Italy 469 

between the government and the papacy. Cavour wanted the 
pope to adopt the principle of a “free Church in a free State,” 
that is, to give up his temporal power and retain only a spirit¬ 
ual sway over Catholics throughout the world. 

The pope did not favor this solution of the prob- stateinItaly 
lem and clung to the States of the Church, 
which after i860 included only Rome and its neighborhood. 
He lost even these possessions ten years later, when Italian 
troops occupied Rome. 1 The temporal power of the papacy 
thus disappeared, after an existence of more than a thousand 
years. 

The relations of Church and State in Italy were henceforth 
defined by the Law of Papal Guarantees, enacted in 1871. It 
allowed the pope to retain his position as an Law of Papal 
independent sovereign, and as such to have his Guarantees 
own court and diplomatic representatives without interference 
from the Italian government. The papal territory, however, 
was limited to the Vatican and Lateran palaces in Rome, with 
their extensive gardens. 2 Parliament also granted to the 
pope an annual subsidy of over six hundred thousand dollars, 
as indemnity for the loss of his estates. 

The Law of Papal Guarantees has never been acknowledged 
as valid by the popes. Pius IX, who occupied the chair of 
St. Peter in 1871, refused to recognize the new The 
Italian kingdom, declined to accept any part of “prisoner of^ 
the financial grants, and shut himself up in the 4116 Vatican 
Vatican. He also issued a decree forbidding Italian Catholics 
to vote or hold office under the royal government. His suc¬ 
cessors, Leo XIII and Pius X, continued this prohibition, but 
it was entirely removed in the year 1919 by Pope Benedict XV. 
With the entrance into Italian politics of a distinct Catholic 
party the relations between the government and the “prisoner 
of the Vatican” promise to enter upon a new phase. 

Italy’s desire to rank among the great powers led her to take 

1 See page 404. 

2 The pope has also the villa of Castel Gandolfo on the Lake of Albano, but he 
never uses this residence. 


470 Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries 


part in the scramble for overseas possessions, which has been 
so marked a feature of European history during the last half 
Italian century. Her colonial aspirations were especially 

colonies fostered by Francesco Crispi, the most promi¬ 
nent Italian statesman since Cavour. During Crispins premier¬ 
ship, the Italians established themselves in Eritrea and part of 

Somaliland, on the eastern 
coast of Africa. Their at¬ 
tempt to set up a protec¬ 
torate over Abyssinia ended 
disastrously at the battle 
of Adowa in 1896, and 
the ancient Abyssinian 
“empire” still remains in¬ 
dependent. In 1911, Italy 
declared war on Turkey 
and conquered Tripoli and 
Cyrenaica in northern 
Africa. The two provinces 
have been organized as a 
colony under the name of 
Libya. None of these 
African territories offers an inviting field for Italian settlement. 
The New World (Argentina, Brazil, and the United States) 
continues to receive most of the peasants and workingmen 
who emigrate from Italy. 



Francesco Crispi 


123. Spain 

Spanish history during the nineteenth century falls into 
four periods. The first is covered by the reign of Ferdinand VII. 
Spain, That Bourbon monarch came back after Napo- 

1814-1833 leon’s overthrow amid popular acclaim; but he 
ruled so wretchedly as to provoke a revolution in 1820. After 
three years of constitutional and parliamentary government, 
the Concert of Europie intervened, crushed the revolutionists, 
who were a small minority of the people, and restored Ferdinand 


Spam 471 

to the throne. 1 A decade of unbenevolent, unenlightened 
despotism followed. 

Ferdinand’s bequest to his distracted country was a dynastic 
quarrel. Being without sons, he set aside the Salic law, which 
fixed the royal succession only in the male line, Spain, 
and left the crown to his youthful daughter Isa- 1833-1868 
bella, under the regency of her mother Christina. Don Carlos, 
Ferdinand’s brother, considered himself the legal heir and took 
up arms to enforce his claim. The result was much desultory 
fighting between Christinists and Carlists, as the supporters 
of the regent and of the pretender were called, respectively. 
The Christinists triumphed at last, and Don Carlos fled the 
country. Isabella’s reign proved to be thoroughly reactionary. 
In 1868 another revolution by the Liberals deposed the queen. 

No regular government existed in Spain for the next seven 
years. The country passed into the hands of military poli¬ 
ticians, who kept a semblance of order by means Spain, 
of the army. After ransacking Europe for a king, 1868-1875 
they offered the very shaky throne to one of the Hohenzollerns, 
thereby producing the “Spanish incident” which brought on 
the Franco-German War. 2 Prince Amadeo of Savoy, a younger 
son of Victor Emmanuel II, did consent to wear the crown, 
only to abdicate after a troubled reign of a little more than 
two years. A republic, which was then set up, lasted even a 
shorter time. Two insurrections, four coups d’etat, and five 
presidents marked its brief course. After this experiment 
most Spaniards were ready to try a monarchy once more. 
In 1875, they recalled the Bourbon line in the person of Isa¬ 
bella’s son and Ferdinand’s grandson, Alfonso XII. 

Under the constitutional rule of Alfonso XII and his suc¬ 
cessor, 3 Spain has begun to recover in some measure from the 
political ills which afflicted her in the nineteenth Spain, 
century. Progress is also being made in curing 1875-1914 
her economic and social ills. The country still remains very 

1 See pages 354 and 364. 2 See page 414. 

3 Alfonso XIII succeeded in 1885, but did not become of age until 1902. He 
married a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. 


47 2 Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries 

poor and undeveloped, in spite of a good soil and climate in the 
south, great mineral wealth in the north, and an excellent geo¬ 
graphical position. The introduction of better agricultural 
methods, railroad building on a considerable scale, steady 
improvement in public finances, and declining illiteracy are 
some of the signs of progress within recent years. 

The present constitution, which dates from 1876, is liberal 
in character. It provides for a parliament ( cortes ) of two 
Constitution chambers and a responsible ministry. Manhood 
of Spam suffrage has prevailed since 1890. The king, as 
in Italy, enjoys little real authority, for all his decrees must be 

countersigned by a min¬ 
ister to be valid. Should 
the royal line become ex¬ 
tinct, the constitution 
provides for popular 
election of a monarch. 

The vast colonial em¬ 
pire of Spain was still 
intact a little more than 
a hundred years ago. 
The Spanish possessions 
in Mexico, Central 
America, and South 
America first became 
separate republics when 
Joseph Bonaparte 
mounted the throne of 
Spain in 1808. They 
definitely separated from the mother country after the restora¬ 
tion of Ferdinand VII. 1 Cuba continued to be a badly gov- 
Spanish erned and restless dependency until the United 
colonies States intervened in 1898. At the Peace of Paris, 
which concluded the Spanish-American War, Spain renounced 
her sovereignty over Cuba and ceded Porto Rico and the 
Philippines to the United States. A year later, she sold to 

1 See pages 342 and 364. 



The King and Queen oe Spain 



Portugal 473 

Germany her remaining island possessions in the Pacific. Her 
few African possessions, recently acquired, are a poor com¬ 
pensation for the loss of what was once the greatest colonial 
empire in the world. 1 

124. Portugal 

Portuguese history in the nineteenth century to some extent 
duplicates that of Spain. As we have learned, 2 the royal 
family of Braganza fled to Brazil when the French Portugal as a 
invaded Portugal in 1807. After Napoleon’s kingdom 
downfall, John VI continued to rule the home country from the 
colony, until the Portuguese, resenting this arrangement, rose 
in revolt and demanded a constitution. The king then re¬ 
turned from Brazil, to rule henceforth as a constitutional sover¬ 
eign. His death in 1826 marked the beginning of a long period 
of disorder. Misgovernment, insurrections, and armed con¬ 
flicts between rival factions kept the little country in turmoil 
for many years. From about the middle of the century the 
Portuguese had peace, but the failure of kingly rule to lessen 
taxes and introduce reforms resulted in much discontent, which 
found expression in republican propaganda. 

Matters came to a crisis in 1910, when a well-planned up¬ 
rising in Lisbon drove the Portuguese king into exile. The 
revolutionists declared the Braganzas forever Portugal as a 
deposed and set up a republic. It still endures, re P ukliC 
in spite of much opposition from those who remain attached 
to the old monarchical regime. 

The republican constitution follows that of France in pro¬ 
viding for a bicameral legislature, a ministry responsible to it, 
and a president with very limited powers, who is Constitution 
chosen by a joint session of the two chambers. of Portugal 
All hereditary titles and privileges have been abolished; tole¬ 
ration has been granted to all religions; and Church and State 
have been separated, as in France. By the establishment of 

1 Spanish colonies: Rio Muni, Rio de Oro, the northern coast of Morocco, 
Fernando Po, and the Canary Islands. 

2 See pages 342 and 363. 


474 Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries , 

a common school system the republic is also beginning to remove 
the reproach of illiteracy, from which Portugal suffers to a 
like extent with Spain. 

Though Portugal lost Brazil in the early ’twenties of the last 
century, she still keeps a colonial empire surpassed in extent 
Portuguese only by the dominions of Great Britain and France, 
colonies it i s almost twenty-five times the size of the 
mother country. The most important Portuguese possessions 
are in Africa. The Azores and Madeira Islands, which belong 
to Portugal, scarcely rank as colonies, being fully incorporated 
in the government of that country. 1 

125. Switzerland 

The Congress of Vienna left Switzerland a confederation of 
twenty-two semi-independent cantons. The only bond be- 
The Swiss tween them was a common Diet, whose limited 

Confeder- authority recalls that of the American Congress 

before the adoption of the Constitution. Even 
this loose union threatened to dissolve toward the middle of 
the nineteenth century, when seven cantons formed a separate 
league called the SonderbuncL. A brief and almost bloodless 
civil war resulted. The secessionists were easily overcome by 
the government forces and were compelled to rejoin the con¬ 
federation. 

The secession movement induced the Swiss in 1848 to adopt 
a stronger federal government. Their new constitution, as 
Constitution framed in 1848 and revised in 1874, sets up a 
of Switzerland bicameral legislature modeled upon that of the 
United States. The National Council, like the House of 
Representatives, is elected directly by popular vote; the 
Council of States, like the Senate, consists of two delegates 
from each canton. The two chambers in joint session select a 
committee of seven — the Federal Council — to act as an 
executive. The president of the confederation is merely the 

1 Portuguese colonies in Africa: Cape Verde Islands, Portuguese Guinea, Angola, 
Mozambique or Portuguese East Africa; in India: Goa, Damaun, Diu; in China: 
Macao; in the East Indies: part of Timor. 


Switzerland 


475 


chairman of this committee. He serves for one year only and 
has no greater authority than his fellow members. In the 
dovetailing of federal and state powers the Swiss constitution 
again follows American precedents. The federal government 
regulates matters affecting all the people, such as foreign 
relations, tariffs, coinage, the postal service, and the army, 
but the several cantons retain control of local concerns. 

In some parts of Switzerland the inhabitants have preserved 
their ancient open-air assemblies ( folkmoots ), where all the male 
citizens appear personally, once a year, and by a Direct 
show of hands elect officials, levy taxes, and make democracy 
the laws. Such direct or pure democracy is possible only in 
the smaller and less thickly populated cantons. 

The larger cantons possess representative assemblies, but 
over them the people exercise constant control by means of the 
referendum and the initiative. In some cantons Referendum 
every measure passed by the cantonal legislature and 
must be submitted to a popular vote for adoption uutiatlve 
or rejection; in the others submission takes place only upon 
petition of a specified number of voters. The complement 
of such a referendum is the initiative, giving a specified number 
of voters the right to propose new laws, which must then be 
referred to a popular vote. The referendum and initiative also 
apply to federal legislation, for both ordinary laws and consti¬ 
tutional amendments. Many American states and cities have 
recently adopted these two devices, in order to bring govern¬ 
ment nearer to the people. It is quite appropriate that they 
should have been perfected in Switzerland, the birthplace of 
Rousseau, who preached the doctrine of unrestricted popular 
sovereignty. 

The Swiss differ markedly among themselves in language, in 
religion, and customs. About seventy per cent of the. in¬ 
habitants are German-speaking; the remainder The Swiss 
speak either French or Italian. All three languages natlon 
are used for the proclamation of laws and in legislative debates. 
Zwinglian and Calvinist Protestants include more than three- 
fifths of the population, but have a majority in only half of the 


476 Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries 

cantons. Full religious liberty is guaranteed to all citizens. 
This policy of mutual toleration prevents either language or 
religion from becoming a divisive force; it keeps the Swiss a 
united nation. 


126 . Belgium 

The circumstances under which Belgium separated from 
Holland and became independent, with her perpetual neutrality 
The Belgian guaranteed by the Concert of Europe, have been 
nation related in an earlier chapter. The Belgians, likS 

the Swiss, form a united nation, in spite of the linguistic barriers 
between them. French is spoken by the Walloons in the 
southern provinces, and Flemish, a Teutonic tongue, by the 
Flemings in the northern provinces. 
Both Walloons and Flemings are 
almost wholly Roman Catholics. 

The present constitution, 
framed in 1831, set up a limited 
Constitution monarchy of the 
of Belgium modern type. Leg¬ 
islative authority is vested in a 
parliament of two houses, the upper 
partly, the lower wholly, elected 
by direct popular vote. Executive 
authority is lodged in a ministry 
responsible to parliament. The 
king may propose new laws, but 
King Albert I otherwise he acts only through 

his ministers. Belgium has never 
had any trouble with her rulers, because Leopold I (1830- 
1865), Leopold II (1865-1899), and Albert I have steadily 
adhered to that clause of the constitution which declares 
that “all powers emanate from the people.” The liberties 
of citizens are further secured by constitutional provisions 
establishing freedom of speech, press, worship, petition, and 
assembly. 

Property qualifications for the suffrage kept the electorate 



477 


Belgium 

very small until 1893, when the constitution was amended 
to provide for manhood suffrage. At the same time, an in¬ 
teresting system of plural voting went into effect._ 

A married man, or a widower with children, or 
the owner of a certain amount of property, has two votes; 
while a citizen who satisfies certain educational requirements 
or who holds a public office has three votes. Plural voting 
consequently augments the political influence of married men, 
of the propertied classes, and of the educated classes. Belgian 
law makes voting obligatory and punishes a citizen for unex¬ 
cused absence from the polls. In 1919 suffrage was partially 
extended to women. 


Palais de Justice, Brussels 

This huge building, for the use of the law courts of Brussels, was erected during the 
years 1866-1883 at a cost of $12,000,000. The architectural style combines Assyrian 
and Renaissance features. 



Belgium has the distinction of being the first European 
country to adopt proportional representation. Under the 
system of representation found in most democ- Proportional 
racies, a candidate having a majority, or even a representation 
simple plurality, of the votes in his district is declared elected. 
This arrangement leaves the minority unrepresented. The 








478 Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries 

device of proportional representation gives to each party its 
rightful number of seats by having candidates elected only 
by those who vote for them. The procedure followed seems 
somewhat complicated, but its practical result is to assure to 
even a small minority representation in the legislature. 1 

Belgium has only one colony, but it is about ten times her 
size. The vast district in Central Africa formerly known as the 
The Belgian Congo Free State and now as the Belgian Congo, 
Congo was established in the early ’eighties by Leopold II, 

mainly as a commercial undertaking. The king became per¬ 
sonal sovereign of the state, which proved to be very valuable 
for its rubber, ivory, and other products. In 1908 Leopold 
surrendered his Congo properties to Belgium. 

127 . Holland 

The kingdom of Holland — more accurately, the Nether¬ 
lands — is one of the creations of the Vienna Congress. It 
Kingdom forms a federal state, consisting (since the loss of 

of the Belgium) of eleven provinces. These retain a 

Netherlands T r ,, ^ 

large measure of self-government. The house of 

Orange has reigned continuously since 1815, the present sover¬ 
eign being Queen Wilhelmina. 

The constitution of Holland also dates from 1815. Suc¬ 
cessive revisions, especially in the revolutionary year, 1848, 
The Dutch have made it a fairly liberal document. The 
constitution Crown is still powerful, but the royal ministers 
are responsible to the Estates-General, or parliament. Prop¬ 
erty qualifications, which formerly excluded a good many 
Dutchmen from voting, have been lowered in recent years. 
In 1918 the franchise was granted to all adult men and women 
without restriction. 

Holland still keeps various tropical dependencies secured in 

1 Suppose that an electoral district in Belgium has 32,000 voters and eight 
representatives in the lower house of parliament. Suppose, further, that four parties 
nominate candidates — eight Clericals, eight Liberals, eight Socialists, and one 
Clerical-Democrat. If there are 16,000 Clerical, 9000 Liberal, 4500 Socialist, 
and 2500 Clerical-Democrat votes, then the apportionment of seats would be four 
Clerical, two Liberal, one Socialist, and one Clerical-Democrat. 


Holland 


479 


the seventeenth century. They are about sixty times as 
large and six times as populous as the mother country. 
Their coffee, tea, sugar, spices, tobacco, and Dutch 
indigo reach Holland in large quantities, for colonies 
distribution throughout Europe. On the whole, she admin¬ 
isters them very successfully. 1 

128. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden 

Nature seems to have intended Scandinavia to be one coun¬ 
try. Only a narrow, shallow sea parts Denmark from her 
northern neighbors, while the well settled districts The 
of Norway and Sweden are not separated by any Scandinavian 
natural barrier. The Danes, Norwegians, and natlons 
Swedes have also very much in common. They descend from 
the old Vikings, who became the terror of Europe in the ninth 
century. Their languages resemble one another closely, 
Danish and Norwegian in the written form being identical. 
They have all been Lutheran Protestants since the sixteenth 
century. They all live under similar physical conditions and 
support themselves by agriculture, commerce, and the fisheries, 
rather than by manufacturing. Nevertheless, antagonisms 
due to historical causes proved stronger than unity of race, 
language, and culture, with the result that there are three 
small and comparatively weak nations when one large and 
powerful nation might have been consolidated. 

The Union of Calmar (1397) brought the Scandinavian 
peoples together for more than a century, under the common 
rule of the Danish king. The secession of Sweden Denmark 
in 1524 dissolved the union. Norway remained 311(1 Norway 
attached to Denmark until the Congress of Vienna, to punish 
the Danes for adhering to Napoleon and to reward the Swedes 
for siding with the allies, united the country with Sweden. 
This action reduced the population of the Danish kingdom by 
fully one-third. The forced cession of Schleswig-Holstein to 
Germany in 1864 restricted Denmark to the peninsula of 

1 Dutch colonies: Sumatra, Java, part of Timor, Dutch Borneo, Celebes, Molucca 
Islands, Dutch New Guinea, Dutch Guinea (Surinam), Cura9ao. 


480 Italy, Spain, and the Minor Countries 

Jutland, with the adjacent islands. It became, henceforth, 
the smallest of the Scandinavian countries. 

Norway and Sweden were joined after 1815 in a personal 
union under the Swedish king. Each country retained its 
Norway and separate constitution, parliament, and courts. 
Sweden Norway resented even this slight measure of de¬ 
pendence upon Sweden. The differences between them, 
though scarcely greater than those which formerly kept Eng¬ 
land and Scotland apart, only became more acute with the 
passage of time. Their separation occurred peacefully in 
1905, as the result of a plebiscite in which the Norwegians, 
almost to a man, voted for independence. The new Norwegian 
king assumed the title of Haakon VII, thus indicating the 
historical continuity of his kingdom with the free Norway of 
the Middle Ages. 

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are monarchies, with written 
constitutions, bicameral parliaments, responsible ministries, and 
The universal suffrage. The present Swedish dynasty 

Scandinavian goes back to the Frenchman Bernadotte, one 
constitutions Napoleon’s marshals, who was adopted as 

Crown Prince of Sweden, and subsequently ascended the 
throne. 

The year 1914 saw the formation of the Scandinavian League, 
an informal alliance of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden for 
The defensive purposes. It recalls the earlier Union 

Scandinavian of Calmar, and if maintained, promises to 
League gi ve these three nations greater weight in the 

councils of Europe. 

Neither Norway nor Sweden has any colonies. 1 Denmark 
had three, until recently. The most important was Iceland, 
Iceland and whicli the adventurous Vikings settled more than 
Greenland a thousand years ago. Iceland received home 
rule during the ’seventies, and in 1918, in complete agreement 
with Denmark, became a sovereign state under its own flag. 
The king of Denmark remains Iceland’s king, but for purely 

1 In 1920 the Peace Conference placed the Spitzbergen Archipelago in the 
Arctic Ocean under the sovereignty of. Norway. 


Denmark, Norway, and Sweden 481 

ornamental purposes. Denmark has also recently parted with 
her possessions in the West Indies, which she sold to the United 
States in 1917, for $25,000,000. They have been renamed the 
Virgin Islands. Greenland continues to be Danish but enjoys 
self-government. The Faroe Islands are definitely incor¬ 
porated in the Danish kingdom. 

Studies 

1. Who is the reigning monarch of the house of Savoy? Of the house of Orange? 
2. Mention some of the economic advantages to Italians of a united Italy. 3. Why 
is the pope called the “prisoner of the Vatican”? 4. How does Spain happen to 
have a Bourbon dynasty? 5. What historical reasons may be assigned for the 
relative backwardness of Spain during the nineteenth century? 6. “The dis¬ 
appearance of the Spanish colonial empire is one of the most significant features of 
the nineteenth century.” Comment on this statement. 7. When did Switzerland 
become a neutralized state? 8. Compare the Swiss folkmoots with town meetings 
in New England. 9. Compare the Swiss referendum with the French plebiscite. 
10. How is Belgium a “buffer state”? 11. Which is more democratic, plural 
voting or the “one-man, one-vote system” ? 12. What advantages are claimed for 

the system of proportional representation? 13. Locate on the map the principal 
possessions of Holland in the East Indies. 14. Name and locate the capitals of 
the three Scandinavian states. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE AND THE DUAL 
MONARCHY 

129. Land and People of Germany 

After 1871 Germany occupied the third place among Euro¬ 
pean countries as respects area, and the second place as respects 
Germany in population. She was surpassed in size only by 
Europe Russia and Austria-Hungary, and in number of 

inhabitants by Russia alone. On the land side, Germany 
faced seven independent states. The water boundary on the 
North Sea and the Baltic includes considerably less than a 
third of the whole frontier. The shallow coasts afford few 
good harbors; consequently nearly all the important trading 
ports are river ports. Germany is provided with many navi¬ 
gable streams, whose usefulness has been increased by means of 
connecting canals. Freight can be carried all the way from the 
Rhine to the Vistula on these interior waterways. A very ex¬ 
tensive system of railroads, nearly all state-owned, helps further 
to bring the chief Continental markets within easy access of 
Germany. 

Geographically, there are two Germanys. The larger part 
of the country consists of North Germany, which, with the 
North Baltic seacoast at its back, forms a continuation of 

Germany the great European plain. The plain is lowest and 
flattest in the neighborhood of Holland; farther east it becomes 
rolling and hilly. North Germany, east of the Elbe, is devoted 
almost entirely to agriculture. 

South Germany, including also the central portion of the 
South country, contains much more diversified scenery. 

Germany j t p 0sseS ses large plateaus; fertile valleys such as 
those of the Main and the Rhine; and mountain ranges, com- 

482 


Land and People of Germany 483 

paratively low in height and so situated as not to interfere 
seriously with communication. The chief mineral products of 
Germany come from these central and southern highlands. 

There are also two German peoples. It has been pointed 
out 1 that the early inhabitants of North Germany belonged 
to the racial type called Baltic or Nordic; they _ _ 

, . . V 1 .,1 „ . North Ger- 

were, and their descendants still are, tall m stature, mans and 

narrow-headed, light-haired, blue-eyed, and fair- South Ger " 
complexioned. South Germany in remote times 
was occupied by the Alpine racial type, whose shorter stature, 
broader heads, and darker hair, eyes, and complexion still 
characterize the present inhabitants. Both peoples now use 
one language, though some differences (formerly much greater) 
exist between Low German, as spoken in the North, and 
High German, as spoken in the South. The latter became 
the literary language of all Germany as early as the Middle 
Ages. The two sections of the country have differed in 
religious affiliations ever since the Reformation. Most of 
North Germany is Protestant, and most of South Germany, 
especially south of the Main, is Roman Catholic. This geo¬ 
graphical distribution now tends to be obscured by the greater 
mobility of the population since the introduction of railroads 
and the abolition of restrictions upon emigration from one state 
to another. 

It is important to note that several non-German peoples 
were incorporated in the German Empire against their will. 
The Poles of West Prussia, East Prussia, and Non- 
Posen, the Danes of Schleswig,, and the inhabit- Germans 
ants of Alsace-Lorraine made up about one-twelfth of the total 
population of Germany. The three “ submerged nationalities ” 
managed to maintain their own languages and separate culture, 
in spite of persistent efforts on the part of the government to 
Germanize them. 

The success of Prussia in raising Germany from disruption 
to unity, from weakness to strength, affected the German 
national character. Outwardly, all Germany adopted Prussian 

1 See page 28. 


484 The German Empire 

armaments and conscription; inwardly, she came to accept 
the Prussian ideals of military discipline, the supremacy of 
Prussianized the soldier over the citizen, the subordination 
Germany 0 f the individual to the state, and autocratic, 
though efficient, government. It has been well said that 
Prussia put an iron girdle around the whole of German life. 
A study of the imperial constitution, which shows Bismarck’s 
hand in every section, will make this clearer. 

130 . The German Constitution 

The German Empire, as established in 1871, was a federa¬ 
tion. It included twenty-six states: four kingdoms, six grand 
A federal duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three 

empire f ree cities, 1 and the imperial territory of Alsace- 

Lorraine. The constitution allowed each state (but not Alsace- 
Lorraine until 1911) to manage its local concerns and specified 
what authority should be exercised by the federal government. 
The German Empire thus represented a compromise between 
the old Germanic Confederation, which formed a union of 
sovereign states, and the thoroughly centralized Prussian 
monarchy. 

The king of Prussia, as ex officio president of the federation, 
received the title of German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser ). 
The He was not called “ Emperor of Germany,” for 

emperor suc ] 1 a title wou id have implied his superiority in 
rank to the other German kings. The kaiser had very great 
powers, particularly in time of war. He commanded the army 
and navy, thus controlling the entire military organization of 
the empire; appointed and received ambassadors; and through 
the imperial chancellor, whom he selected, influenced both 
foreign and domestic policies. He might also of his own 
notion declare a defensive war, but the declaration of an of¬ 
fensive war required the consent of the Bundesrat. The 
kaiser was quite irresponsible in his exercise of these powers; he 
could neither be punished nor removed from office for his acts. 

1 Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck. 


The German Constitution 485 

The Federal Council, or Bundesrat, consisted of sixty-one 
members, apportioned among the states roughly according to 
size. Prussia had seventeen; Bavaria, the next The 
largest, six; and a great many states, only one Bundesrat 
each. The delegation from each state voted as a unit and al¬ 
ways in accordance with instructions given to them by their 
respective governments. The consequence was that the 
Bundesrat formed an aristocratic council of diplomats, repre- 



The Reichstagsgebaude, Berlin 
T he building housed both the Bundesrat and the Reichstag. 


senting (except in the case of the free cities) the hereditary 
German princes. The Bundesrat, in practice, made all the 
laws. It shaped in secret sessions the bills to be laid before 
the Reichstag for approval, and it had a veto of any measure 
passed by the latter body. 

The Imperial Diet, or Reichstag, contained three hundred 
and ninety-seven members, elected for a five-year term by 
all male citizens who had reached the age of The 
twenty-five years. Each member represented a Reichstag 
single district. In 1871 the districts contained about one hun¬ 
dred thousand inhabitants each, but their boundaries were 
never altered subsequently with the increase or decrease of 
population. As the result of this “ rotten-borough ” system, 






486 


The German Empire 


the rural region of East Prussia, whose population in 1914 was 
about equal to that of Berlin, sent nearly three times as many 
representatives to the Reichstag. Similar discrepancies ex¬ 
isted in other parts of the empire. They would have been 
more serious had the Reichstag been more powerful. As a 
matter of fact, it exerted little influence on legislation. It 
might introduce bills, but few of them were likely to receive 
the assent of the Bundesrat. If, however, the Reichstag re¬ 
fused to pass a government measure, the Bundesrat and the 
emperor could dissolve it and order a new election. The 
Reichstag was dissolved four times, and after each dissolution 
the new assembly meekly passed the bill which its predecessor 
had rejected. As compared with the British House of Com¬ 
mons or the French Chamber of Deputies, the Reichstag was 
little more than a debating society; it discussed, it did not 
govern. 

The emperor’s representative in dealing with the legislature 
was the chancellor. This official corresponded only in slight 
The degree to the prime minister or premier in other 

chancellor governments. He was responsible solely to the 
emperor, who appointed him and dismissed him at will. The 
chancellor presided over the Bundesrat, and in the name of the 
emperor laid before the Reichstag all measures which the 
Bundesrat had framed. He also selected the chief federal 
officials and supervised their activity. 

It is clear that, while the German Empire was a constitu¬ 
tional state, it was not a democratic state. No ministry rose 

Absence of or at t ^ ie t ^ ie Reichstag, and the chan- 

apariia- cellor, the emperor’s agent, held his position as 

system^ long as he retained the emperor’s confidence. 

Unlike Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portu¬ 
gal, Belgium, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries, Germany 
did not have a genuine parliamentary system. 

The parties or political groups of Germany included Con- 
Poiitical servatives, representing the landed aristocracy 

groups {Junkers), public officials, and peasants; National 

Liberals, representing the middle classes; Roman Catholic 


The German Constitution 


487 

Clericals, or Centrists, so designated from the seats which 
their representatives occupied on the floor of the Reichstag; 
and the Social Democrats or Socialists. In 1914 the latter 
formed the largest party in Germany. While most of its 
supporters were workingmen, many middle-class people who 
rejected the economic doctrines of socialism, also voted for 
Social Democratic candidates, in order to protest as effectively 
as possible against autocracy and militarism. The unfair 
system of representation, however, gave this party far fewer 
seats in the Reichstag than it was entitled to. 

Prussia, with approximately two-thirds the area and two- 
thirds the population of Germany, naturally held the leading 
place in the empire. The king of Prussia was Para _ 
German emperor; of the five chancellors between mountcyof 
1871 and 1914 all but one were Prussians; and Prussia 
Prussia kept a majority of representatives in the Reichstag. 
Her seventeen votes in the Bundesrat did not assure her a 
majority there, but she almost always obtained the support of 
enough states to carry any legislation desired. On the other 
hand, if Prussia opposed a bill in the Bundesrat, not less than 
twelve of the largest states had to combine in order to secure 
a majority against her. Let it be noted, finally, that no amend¬ 
ment to the constitution might be adopted if fourteen votes 
were cast against it in the Bundesrat. This meant that 
Prussia’s solid block of votes, controlled by the kaiser, could 
prevent any democratic modifications of the constitution, no 
matter how much desired by the German people generally. 

The paramountcy of Prussia makes it highly important to 
understand the government of that country. The constitution 
which Frederick William IV “ granted ” in 1850 The 
to his faithful subjects, 1 did not seriously limit Prussian 
the royal power. The upper house of the Prussian government 
parliament (Landtag) consisted of nobles and wealthy Junkers , 
whom the king appointed for life and whose numbers he could 
enlarge at will. The lower and supposedly popular branch of 
parliament was elected according to a system which gave the 

1 See page 386. 


488 The German Empire 

richer classes an overwhelming influence. All the voters of a 
district were divided into three classes, according to the amounts 
of taxes paid by them, and each class received equal repre¬ 
sentation in the convention which elected the member of parlia¬ 
ment for the district. It might happen — it did happen — 
that the vote of one wealthy man had as great weight as the 
votes of a thousand poor workingmen. Even Bismarck, no 
friend of democracy, called the Prussian electoral system the 
worst ever devised. To complete this outline, it should be 
added that the king possessed a veto of all legislation passed 
by the Landtag; that the ministry was responsible to him and 
not to the Landtag; and that the constitution expressly recog¬ 
nized his divine right to rule. “ Absolutism under constitu¬ 
tional forms ” is the description which a great German scholar 
— himself a Prussian — once correctly applied to the govern¬ 
ment of Prussia. 

131 . Imperial Germany, 1871-1914 

German history between 1871 and 1914 falls naturally into 
two periods, the first of which is covered by the reign of William 
Reign of E The emperor left both domestic and foreign 

William I, affairs almost entirely in the strong hands of Bis- 

1871—1888 

marck, who served as imperial chancellor and 
president of the Prussian ministry. The architect of the empire 
presided over its destinies for almost twenty years. Many 
problems confronted him. “ Blood and iron ” had unified the 
German peoples, but other bonds were required to keep them 
one. They must now learn to think and feel and act im¬ 
perially, sinking their local tendencies and old “ particularism ” 
in a new national consciousness. 

Bismarck’s prestige as the maker of Germany enabled him 
to secure the enactment of much legislation enlarging the 
Imperial functions of the federal government at the ex- 
legisiation pense of the several states. Uniform codes of 
civil and criminal law were provided for the entire empire. A 
supreme court at Leipzig was created to hear appeals from state 
courts. An imperial bank (Reichsbank) was set up at Berlin 


Imperial Germany 


489 



The German National Monument 


Designed by Johannes Schilling; begun in 1877; completed in 1883. The monument 
stands on a wooded hillside opposite Bingen and overlooking the Rhine valley. The great 
base, 82 feet high, supports an impressive figure of Germania, 34 feet high, with the 
imperial crown and the laurel-wreathed sword. On the side of the pedestal facing the 
river is a design symbolizing “The Watch on the Rhine.” The other sides of the pedestal 
bear designs representing various scenes in the Franco-German War. 









































































490 


The German Empire 

to become the central institution in Germany for financial 
operations and the issue of banknotes. All the state railroads 
were placed under the control of an imperial railroad bureau. 
An imperial coinage, with the mark as its basis, also appeared. 
The new coins bore on one side the emperor’s effigy, and on 
the other side, the arms of the empire; they carried every¬ 
where the “ good news of unity.” All these measures helped 
to foster national sentiment throughout Germany. 

There were other problems which even Bismarck could not 
solve. Germany contained important non-German elements, 
Party but he did little or nothing to reconcile them to 

contests the imperial regime. Danes, Poles, and Alsatians 
remained unwilling members of the empire, and through their 
representation in the Reichstag or in the Prussian parlia¬ 
ment continued to be a source of embarrassment to the 
government. Again, unification of Germany had brought 
together Protestant North Germans and Catholic South Ger¬ 
mans, thus sowing seeds of religious dissension between the 
two sections. Bismarck carried through parliament many 
laws forbidding the Roman Catholic Church to intervene 
in any way in civil affairs. The net result was the forma¬ 
tion of a Catholic Party, whose influence in the Reichstag 
at length compelled the Iron Chancellor to “ go to Canossa,” 
that is, to repeal nearly all the obnoxious anti-clerical leg¬ 
islation. Finally, he came off second-best in his political 
struggle with the Social Democrats, who were equally opposed 
to monarchy, aristocracy, and the existing economic system. 
His measures of repression against this party proved to be 
no more effective than those against Catholics, and the steady 
growth of socialism continued to alarm the ruling classes of 
Germany. 

Bismarck still held office when William I passed away in 1888, 
at the age of ninety-one. His successor, Frederick III, who 
Frederick had married a daughter of Queen Victoria, seems 
m to have been a man of decidedly democratic views 

and an admirer of the British parliamentary system. German 
Liberals looked forward with great hope to his reign. But 


Imperial Germany 


491 


the third Frederick mounted the throne only to die within a few 

months. In the light of subsequent events, his untimely death 

was a misfortune for Germany, for Europe, and for the world. 

Frederick’s son, William II, became king of Prussia and 

German emperor when not quite twenty-nine years of age. In 

this last of the Hohenzollerns 1 culminated all Reignof 

their absolutism, their contempt of popular gov- William 11, 

_1913 

emment, and their firm belief in the doctrine of 
divine right. “ The will of the king is the supreme law,” he 
himself declared. The young ruler could not work well with 
the old chancellor, who had so long reigned in all but name. 
Friction between them led to Bismarck’s enforced resignation 
of the chancellorship in 1890. His four successors in that office 
were merely mouthpieces of the emperor; after 1890 William 
II was, in effect, his own chancellor. 


1 Hohenzollern Dynasty (1640-1918) 
Frederick William, the Great Elector 

(i640j-i688) 

Frederick I 

(1688-1701, elector; 1701-1713, king) 


Frederick William I 

(1713-1740) 


Frederick II, the Great 
(1740-1786) 


August William 


Frederick William II 

(1786-1797) 


Frederick William III 
(179771840) 


Frederick William IV 
(1840-1861) 


William I 

(1861-1888, king; 1871-1888, emperor) 


Frederick III 
(1888) 


William II 
(1888-1918) 




492 


The German Empire 


132 . Colonial Expansion of Germany 

All the German colonies dated from the last two decades 
of the nineteenth century, when the best parts of the world 
Delay in had already been appropriated by Great Britain, 
colonization France, and other powers. The explanation of 
Germany’s delay in colonization was her late entrance into the 
family of nations. Even after 1871 she did not embark im¬ 
mediately upon colonial enterprises. Bismarck, like Frederick 
the Great, believed that distant dependencies were a burden 
to the state. It would be far better, he thought, for Germany 
to devote all her energies to domestic problems. The Iron 
Chancellor was so much of a “ no colony man ” that he refused 
to take any of the French overseas possessions as a prize of 
victory in the Franco-German War. 

But Bismarck soon had to change his policy. The reasons 
were principally three. First, colonies would furnish homes 
Reasons for for German emigrants, who otherwise had to settle 
colonization Fi the United States and other foreign countries. 
Second, colonies would provide new markets for German manu¬ 
factures and raw materials for German factories. Third, the 
possession of colonies seemed to be demanded by Ger¬ 
many’s new position in Europe: they would be the badge 
of her success and perhaps the stepping stones to a world 
empire. 

African colonization began in 1884-1885, when extensive 
territories on the Gulf of Guinea, in southwestern Africa, and 
Extent of in eastern Africa, which had been secured by Ger- 
coiomzation man a g en t s through treaties with native chief¬ 
tains, were transferred to the imperial government. Upwards 
of one million square miles of the Dark Continent thus came 
under the German flag. In 1897 Germany seized the bay of 
Kiauchau and adjacent territory in the Chinese province of 
Shantung, ostensibly as “ compensation ” for the murder of 
two German missionaries. She then extorted a ninety-nine 
year lease of Kiauchau and asserted a “ sphere of influence ” 
embracing all of Shantung. A part of the island of New Guinea, 


Constitution of Austria-Hungary 493 

together with various small groups in the Pacific, was also 
annexed by Germany. 

< These colonies, more than four times the size of the Father- 
land, made a fine showing on the map. However, they cost an 
enormous sum for maintenance; their savage in- Results of 
habitants preferred to fight Germans rather than colonization 
buy German goods; and their hot, unhealthy climate kept 
away immigrants. The German population of all the colonies 
amounted in 1914 to only 16,000. Except as sources of raw 
materials, they were liabilities rather than assets to the home 
country. 1 

133 . Constitution of Austria-Hungary 

The student will recall how the democratic and national 

movement, which swept over Europe after the “ February 

Revolution,” threatened at first to break the Austria and 

Hapsburg realm into fragments. But the time Hungary, 

1849—1867 

for its dissolution had not yet come. Austria 
emerged triumphant from the storm of revolution, and under 
the youthful emperor, Francis Joseph I, returned to the well- 
worn path of absolutism and reaction. Hungary, especially, 
felt the full weight of Austrian displeasure, as the result of her 
failure to win freedom under Kossuth in 1849. Ever since 
1526, when the Magyars sought the protection of Austria 
against the Ottoman Turks and elected a Hapsburg king of 
Hungary, they had continued to enjoy some measure of self- 
government. Their country was now cut into five districts, 
ruled by Germans from Vienna, and German was made the 
official language everywhere. These measures did not succeed 
in obliterating the sense of nationality among the Magyars. 
After the two disastrous wars of 1859 and 1866, which expelled 
the Austrians from Italy and Germany, Francis Joseph found 

1 German Colonies (1914) 

Africa: Togo, Cameroons, German Southwest Africa, German East Africa. 

Asia: Kiauchau. 

Oceania: German New Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land), Bismarck Archipelago, 
northern Solomon Islands, German Samoa, Pelew Islands, Caroline 
Islands, Ladrone or Marianne Islands (except Guam), Marshall Islands. 


494 


The Dual Monarchy 

himself obliged to pursue a more conciliatory policy toward 
the Magyars. “ What does Hungary demand? ” he asked the 
great Magyar statesman, Deak, a few days after the battle of » 
Sadowa. “ Only what she wanted before Sadowa ” was the 



reply. Hungary soon got what she wanted — the restoration 
of her historic rights as a nation. 

The constitution known as the Ausgleich (Compromise), 
was framed by Deak and the emperor. It created a dual 
The monarchy, something more than a personal union 

Ausgleich, and yet less than a close federation. The do- 

1867—1918 

minions of the Hapsburgs were split into two self- 
governing states: (i) the Austrian Empire, including Upper 
Austria, Lower Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and twelve 
other provinces; and (2) the kingdom of Hungary, including 
Croatia-Slavonia. Each country had its own parliament, 
ministry, courts, officials, language, and capital (Vienna and 
Budapest). Both had one flag, one army and navy, and one 
sovereign, who wore the joint crown of Austrian emperor and 
Hungarian king. There was also a common tariff, a common 







Constitution of Austria-Hungary 495 

coinage, and a common administration of foreign affairs. 
This political makeshift had to be renewed every decade. 
It managed to survive until the revolutionary year of 1918. 

The Dual Monarchy was somewhat more democratic than 
the German Empire. Laws in Austria were made by a ma¬ 
jority of the two houses of parliament and were Government 
executed by a ministry nominally responsible to of Austria 
both houses, but practically servants of the Crown. The 
emperor, by playing off one parliamentary faction against an¬ 
other, could often 
secure his own way 
in legislation. Man¬ 
hood suffrage pre¬ 
vailed since 1907. 

The law-making 
power in Hungary 
was also Government 
vested in of Hungary 
a bicameral parlia¬ 
ment and a nomi¬ 
nally responsible min¬ 
istry. Very illiberal 
qualifications for the 
suffrage, both prop¬ 
erty and educational, 
limited the number of 
voters before 1913 to 
a fourth of the adult 
male population. Franchise reform in that year doubled the 
electorate, but did not disturb the privileged position which 
the Magyars enjoyed in the state. 

The relations between Austria and Hungary under the 
Ausgleich were not always amicable. Perhaps the strongest 
tie holding the two countries together was a deep- Francis 
seated loyalty to the venerable Francis Joseph. Joseph I 
The emperor’s long reign bridged the gap between the era of 
Metternich and the World War, between 1848 and 1914. De- 




496 The Dual Monarchy 

spite heavy private griefs — the execution of his brother Maxi¬ 
milian, whom Napoleon III had set on the throne of Mexico 
and then deserted; the suicide of his only son; the murder of 
his wife by an anarchist; and the assassination of his nephew 
and heir — Francis Joseph never forgot the duties of a monarch. 
He mixed freely among the people, received them in public 
audience, speaking now one, now another, of the seventeen 
languages of his dominions, and worked harder at the business 
of governing than any of his ministers. The emperor-king 
died in harness in 1916. The crowns of Austria and Hungary 
then descended to his grandnephew, Charles I, who reigned 
less than two years. 1 

134 . Nationalities in Austria-Hungary 

The Dual Monarchy could claim to be only in part — the 
smaller part — Teutonic. The ruling family was German, 
Diversity of and German was the official language in most 
nationalities common use. But out of a total population of 
about 50,000,000 in 1914, there were only 12,000,000 Germans. 

1 Hapsburg Dynasty (1745-1918) 

Maria Theresa m. Francis I 

(Austrian ruler, 1740-1780) (Holy Roman Emperor, 1745-1765) 


Joseph II Leopold II 

(1765-1790) '(1790-1792) 

I. 

Francis II 

(Holy Roman Emperor, 1792-1806; 
as emperor of Austria, Francis I, 1806-1835) 


Ferdinand I Francis Charles 

(1835-1848) _ 1 


Francis Joseph I ' Charles Louis 

(1848-1916)_ [ 


Francis Ferdinand Otto 

I 

Charles I 
(1916-1918) 






Nationalities in Austria-Hungary 


497 


The other nationalities included Magyars (10,000,000), Slavs 
(24,000,000), and Latin or Romanic peoples (4,000,000). 

The Germans of Austria, forming about one third of the 
population, extended in a compact group from the Tyrol in 
the south to some distance east of Vienna. A 
German belt almost encircled the Czechs of Bo¬ 
hemia. Small German settlements (enclaves) were also dotted 
like islands over Hungary. Excepting the Tyrolese, a peasant 
people, the Austrian Germans generally belonged to the middle 
and upper classes. They were the dominant element in Austria. 

In Hungary the Magyars were dominant. Though only a 
bare half of the population, they held the balance Magyars 
of power between the Slovaks, Serbo-Croats, and 
Rumanians in the Hungarian kingdom. 

The Slavs composed by far the largest racial group of the 
Dual Monarchy, but they differed greatly in language, religion, 
and customs, and as the map shows, occupied Northern 
widely separated territories. The northern Slavs Slavs 
included the Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia, the Slovaks in 
northern Hungary, the Poles of western Galicia, and the Ru- 
thenians (Little Russians) of eastern Galicia. All these peoples 
had nationalist aspirations. The Czechs could not forget 
that Bohemia, as well as Hungary, had been a sovereign state 
before its union with Austria in 1526; they demanded the 
same measure of independence that the Magyars enjoyed. 
The Slovaks in Hungary wanted to be united with their Czech 
brethren in Bohemia. The Galician Poles, like the Poles in 
Prussia and Russia, looked forward to the restoration of a free 
Poland. 

The southern Slavs, or Jugoslavs, as they call themselves, 
comprised the two groups of Slovenes in Styria and Carniola 
and Serbo-Croats in Croatia-Slavonia, Dal- Southern 
matia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. These Slavs Slavs 
were separated from their kinsmen in the north by the Magyar 
settlement in central Europe during the Middle Ages. The 
Serbo-Croats speak the same language as the people of Serbia, 
with whom they desired to be incorporated. 


498 The Dual Monarchy 



Two other nationalities held an inferior place in the Dual 
Rumanians Monarchy. The Rumanians, who occupied the 
and Italians Hungarian province of Transylvania, agitated 
for union with the kingdom of Rumania. The Italians living 
in Istria and the Trentino wanted to be “ redeemed ” from 
Austrian rule and restored to Italy. 1 

1 See page 404. 






























Nationalities in Austria-Hungary 499 

The Ausgleich, as we have seen, formed a league between 
the Germans and the Magyars, the two strongest Discord of 
nationalities of Austria-Hungary. They were not nationalities 
only determined to preserve their own language and cus¬ 
toms, but also to force them on the Slavs, Rumanians, and 
Italians. The result was great and increasing bitterness be¬ 
tween the dominant and subject peoples. This discord of 
nationalities helped to precipitate the war in 1914, and in 1918 
to disrupt the Dual Monarchy. 

Studies 

1. On an outline map of the German Empire in 1914 indicate the territories of 
Prussia. 2. On an outline map of Austria-Hungary in 1914 indicate the regions 
predominantly German, Slavic, Romanic, and Magyar in population. 3. Compare 
the German Empire as a federation with the United States. 4. What was the 
historical origin of the free cities of the German Empire? 5. Explain the distinc¬ 
tion between the titles “German Emperor” and “Emperor of Germany.” 6. Con¬ 
trast the organization and powers of the Bundesrat with the American Senate, and 
of the Reichstag with the American House of Representatives. 7. Why was the 
Reichstag described by its own members as merely a “hall of echoes”? 8. Explain 
how Prussia held a paramount position in the German Empire. 9. Why was 
Germany called the “political kindergarten of Europe”? 10. Name and locate 
the colonial possessions of Germany in 1914. 11. Why was the Austrian Empire 

called a “ramshackle empire”? 12. What was meant by calling Austria “a Slav 
house with a German facade”? 13. Comment on the statement, “You Magyars 
are only an island in an ocean of Slavs.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


RUSSIA 

135 . The Russians 


Before the World War, Russia in Europe comprised three- 
fifths of the area of that continent and contained perhaps 
The eastern 150,000,000 people. The bulk of the inhabitants 
Slavs are eastern Slavs, the descendents of Slavic emi¬ 

grants from the Danube and Elbe valleys during the early 
Middle Ages. The emigrants separated, centuries ago, into 
three groups, which have persisted to the present day. 

The Great Russians, who are much the largest of these 
groups, occupy the interior, the north, and the east of Russia. 
Great Their historic center is Moscow on the Moskva 

Russians River, the capital of the medieval principality of 

Muscovy. To every patriotic Russian that city is still “Mother 
Moscow.” 

The Little Russians (Ruthenians, Ukrainians) hold the 
south and southwest of the country. They center about the 
Little holy city of Kiev on the Dnieper, where in 988 

Russians the Scandinavian Northmen adopted the Eastern 
or Greek form of Christianity for themselves, and for the Slavs 
among whom they settled. Intellectually, the Little Russians 
are far more energetic and imaginative than the Great Rus¬ 
sians, and to them Russia owes most of her music, her poetry, 
and her folk song. 

The White Russians, whose name is probably derived from 
their light-colored clothes, dwell to the west, in lands which 
White once belonged to Lithuania. They number only 

Russians a f ew millions. 

The three Russian peoples speak different dialects of one 

Linguistic Slavic language. The dialectical differences are 

umty sufficient to prevent a Muscovite from under¬ 

standing a Ukrainian and both from conversing with a White 

500 


The Non-Russians 


5oi 

Russian. For literary and official purposes, the Moscow 
dialect is everywhere employed. The alphabet in use comes 
from the Greek, enriched with special signs for Slavic letters. 

The three Russian peoples also unite in a common allegiance 
to the Orthodox Church. This was an offshoot of the medieval 
Greek Church, from which most of its doctrines Religious 
and ritual have been derived. Until the Russian unit y 
Revolution of 1917, the tsar remained the head of the church, 
as far as to make and annul all appointments to ecclesiastical 
office. Theological questions were dealt with by a council of 
ecclesiastics called the Holy Synod. Russia, it may be noted, 
contains numberless dissenting sects, which formerly en¬ 
countered persecution by the government for their unorthodox 
beliefs and practices. 

136 . The Non-Russians 

The seaward expansion of Russia in Europe gradually en¬ 
rolled many non-Russians among the tsar’s subjects. 1 They 
were found principally along the frontier. Peter Frontier 
the Great annexed several Baltic provinces con- P e °P les 
taining Esthonians, Letts, and Germans. Catherine II ab¬ 
sorbed the greater part of Poland, and by her conquest of the 
Crimea and the northern coast of the Black Sea added to the 
empire millions of Mohammedan Tatars. Early in the nine¬ 
teenth century Alexander I took Finland from Sweden (1809), 
wrested Bessarabia from Turkey (1812), secured a further 
slice of Poland (1815), and began the conquest of Caucasia. 
The Caucasian territory with its mixed population (Georgians, 
Circassians, Armenians, etc.) was not finally incorporated in 
the empire until after the middle of the century. Russia then 
reached her territorial limits in Europe. The break-up of the 
country since the World War has enabled most of these frontier 
peoples to establish independent states. 

About ninety per cent of the inhabitants of Finland are 
Finns; the remainder are chiefly Swedes, who occupy the 

1 See the maps on pages 196 and 502. 


502 


Russia 


coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. The Finns came from Asia 
early in the Middle Ages. They still keep the low stature, 
Finns round heads, flat features, oblique eyes, and promi¬ 

nent cheek-bones of the Mongolian race. Their 
language is also of Asiatic origin. In spite of constant struggle 



with a poor soil and an adverse climate, the Finns have made 
remarkable progress in civilization. Illiteracy is almost un¬ 
known among them. Nearly all are Lutherans. 

A Finnish people, the Esths or Esthonians, dwell just south 
of the Gulf of Finland. Once wild and adventurous pirates, 




























The Non-Russians 


5°3 


Esthonians 


the terror of the Baltic, the Esthonians were first conquered 
and Christianized by the Danes. The Danish king subse¬ 
quently sold his Esthonian possessions to the 
crusading order of Teutonic Knights, who spread 
German influence throughout the country. Sweden during the 
sixteenth century assumed control of Esthonia, but after the 
wars of Charles XII it was ceded to his victorious rival, Peter 
the Great. 1 The Esthonians, like the Finns, are Lutherans. 

The Letts of Livonia and Courland and the Lithuanians 
are two peoples who resemble each other closely in speech, 
personal appearance, and habits of life. With a Letts and 
third kindred group, the Borussi or Old Prus- Lithuanians 
sians, 2 they formerly occupied all the southeastern coast of the 
Baltic from the Vistula to the Dima. Owing to their impene¬ 
trable forests and swamps, the Letts and Lithuanians long 
remained heathen and did not accept Christianity until the 
fourteenth century. Their languages, though of Indo-European 
type, are the most archaic spoken in Europe. Force of circum¬ 
stances denied the Letts a prominent place in history, but the 
Lithuanians during the Middle Ages built up a powerful state 
stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The grand duchy 
of Lithuania united with Poland in 1569, and thereafter shared 
the vicissitudes of that kingdom. 3 

Russian Poland, as constituted by the Vienna Congress, 4 
had a mixed population of Lithuanians, Polish Slavs, Little and 
White Russians, and many Jews. The Lithua- poJes 
nians and Polish Slavs — conveniently referred to 
as Poles — belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and 
though subjects of the tsar, kept their national spirit. 

No account of the non-Russians could well omit a reference 
to the Jews. Five million Jews were found within the empire, 
especially in Poland, which had long been a Jewish ^ ews 
settlement. The Jews preserved their religion, 
national traditions, and even their Yiddish language, a German 
dialect intermixed with many Hebrew and Slavic words and 
written in Hebrew characters. 

1 See page 204. 2 See pages 209-10. 


3 See pages 215-16. 4 See page 356. 


504 


Russia 


137 . Alexander I, 1801-1825 

The hodge-podge of territories and Babel of peoples com¬ 
posing the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century was 
Russian ruled by an autocratic tsar. His decrees (ukases) 
autocracy were binding on all his subjects. Russian laws 
called him an “independent and absolute sovereign” and 
declared that God “orders men to submit to his superior author¬ 
ity, not only from fear of punishment, but as a religious duty.” 
Many educated Russians, who perhaps were not greatly im¬ 
pressed by this appeal to divine right, nevertheless considered 
autocratic government a practical necessity for Russia. The 
enormous size and varied population of the country, the dense 
ignorance of most of .its inhabitants, and the absence of a 
prosperous, progressive middle class, which could take part in 
political life, seemed to indicate that the triumph of democracy 
would be long postponed in the tsar’s domains. The chief 
interest of Russian history during the last century lies, there¬ 
fore, in the development of liberalism, which gradually under¬ 
mined the whole fabric of autocracy, and in the revolutionary 
year of 1917 brought it crashing to the ground. 1 

Alexander I, grandson of Catherine II and son of the emperor 
Paul, who had been assassinated after a brief rule, began as a 

1 Romanov Dynasty (1762-1917) 

Catherine II (1762-1796) 

I 

Paul I (1796-1801) 

! 


Alexander I Nicholas I 

(1801-1825) (1825-1855) 

I 

Alexander II 
(.1855-1881) 

I 

Alexander III 
(1881-1894) 

I 

Nicholas II 

(1894-1917) 



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Russia 


506 

monarch of enlightened views. Under the influence of his 
Swiss tutor, he imbibed many democratic ideas of the 
The reform- revolutionary period in Europe, and he aspired to 
ing Alexander p ut them into practice. The earlier part of the 
tsar’s reign revealed him as a liberal-minded autocrat. He 
began to free the serfs on the crown lands; drew up an elaborate 
scheme of primary education, which, however, was shipwrecked 
by the lack of teachers and the stupidity of the popular mind; 
and started to codify the chaos of laws, consisting principally 
of seventy thousand ukases issued by his predecessors. Alex¬ 
ander also acted most generously toward the Finns and Poles, 
who' received practical independence. Their only connection 
with Russia lay through the tsar in his capacity of grand duke 
of Finland and king of Poland. 

Alexander’s ardor for reform grew cold during the latter 
part of his reign, especially after he came under the influence 
Alexander as of that foe of liberalism, Prince Metternich. 
a reactionary xh e tsar not on ]y s ig ne( i the Protocol of Troppau, 1 
but also cooperated with his brother monarchs in putting down 
the first liberal uprisings in Italy and Spain. The last years 
of his life found him equally reactionary at home. 


138 . Nicholas I, 1825-1855 

Alexander’s sudden death in December, 1825, resulted in 
some uncertainty as to the succession, and three weeks elapsed 
The Decem- before his brother Nicholas mounted the throne, 
bnst uprising D ur j n g this interval the revolutionary secret 
societies, which had begun to spring up in Russia as in western 
Europe, organized a mutiny among the troops at St. Petersburg. 
The ringleaders planned the overthrow of autocracy and the 
establishment of a constitutional regime under the grand duke 
Constantine. Their slogan was “ Constantine and the Con¬ 
stitution,” but many ignorant soldiers who shouted it actually 
supposed that “ Constitution ” was Constantine’s wifel The 


See page 362. 


Nicholas I 



uprising ended in a fiasco, and the Decembrists were severely 
punished by the new tsar. 

Nicholas I, unlike his brother, never felt any sentimental 
sympathy with liberalism. The Decembrist uprising only con¬ 
firmed him in the belief that Russia needed to be Domestic 
ruled with a strong hand. To prevent liberal policy of 
ideas from spreading among his subjects, the Nlcholas 1 
tsar relied on a strict censorship of the press, passport regulations 
which made it difficult for any 
one to enter Russia or to leave 
it, an army of spies, and the 
secret police known as the 
Third Section. The chief of 
the Third Section had un¬ 
limited power to arrest, im¬ 
prison, or deport a political 
suspect, without warrant and 
without trial. During the 
thirty years’ reign of Nicholas 
I, Liberals by tens of thou¬ 
sands languished in jail or 
trod the path of exile to 
Siberia. The tsar seems 
finally to have realized that 
this system of repression was 
a mistake, but he clung to it 
until the end. “My successor,” said he, “may do as he 
pleases; I cannot change.” 

Nicholas was no less autocratic in his foreign policy. We 

have already learned how ruthlessly he put down the Polish 

insurrection and how he aided Francis Joseph I Foreign 

to destroy the Hungarian Republic. 1 Once only policy of 
... l ... j Nicholas I 

did the tsar espouse a revolutionary cause. In 

1828 he sided with the Greeks who had risen against the Turks, 

but even then his purpose was not so much to free Greece as 

to exalt Russia. Nicholas afterwards waged the Crimean 

1 See pages 376 and 383. 


Russia 


508 

War, a venture which brought him into conflict with Great 
Britain, France, and Sardinia as the allies of Turkey. He died 
before the war ended. 


139 . Alexander II, 1855-1881 



Alexander II started out as a benevolent despot. The 
survivors of the Decembrist movement were allowed to return 
„ home, and other political offenders were also 

pardoned. The censorship of the press was 
relaxed, and the prohibition upon foreign travel was removed. 

The tsar issued a new 
code of laws, based on 
those of western Europe. 
He improved the courts 
of justice, long notorious 
for their incompetence 
and corruption. More 
important still, he en¬ 
trusted the administra¬ 
tion of roads, schools, 
churches, and other local 
concerns to provincial 
and district assemblies 
(: zemstvos ), freely elected 
by all classes of the 
people. His most memo¬ 
rable achievement was the abolition of serfdom, which had 
lasted longer in Russia than in any other European country. 
Alexander’s decrees between 1858-1861 freed nearly fifty 
million peasants and earned for their author the title of the 
“Tsar Liberator.” 

The era of reform lasted scarcely a decade. Alexander II 
was not a liberal at heart, and his counselors were men trained 
in the school of Nicholas I. They convinced him, 
as Metternich had convinced the first Alexander, 
that liberalism was a Western novelty, quite unsuited to holy 


Alexander II 


Reaction 


Alexander II 


509 


Russia, and bound to be followed by revolution and the over¬ 
throw of autocracy. After the Polish insurrection of the early 
’sixties, 1 which thoroughly frightened the tsar, reaction had 
full swing in Russia. 

The intense disappointment of the educated classes (the 
intelligentsia) at Alexander’s relapse into the traditional ways 
of Russian monarchs, gave rise to nihilism. 2 It Nihilism 
began as an academic doctrine. Radical thinkers, 
building where the French philosophers of the eighteenth 
century had left off, set up reason and science as the twin 
guides of life. Russia, they urged, must make a clean sweep 
of autocracy, of the Orthodox Church, and of every other 
institution that had come down from an unreasoning, un¬ 
scientific past. Only when the ground had been thus cleared, 
would it be possible to reconstruct a new and better society. 

The nihilists before long began to seek converts among the 
masses. Under the guise of doctors, school teachers, factory 
hands, and common laborers, they preached the Nihilist 
gospel of social and economic freedom to those propaganda 
who, as they said, were “ exhausted by hunger, broken down by 
toil, the eternal slaves of the privileged classes, laboring without 
pause, without hope of redemption.” Nothing could exceed 
the devotion of these youthful missionaries, both men and 
women, but their success was slight. The peasants remained 
just as deeply attached as ever to the “Little Father,” the 
tsar. The government soon got wind of the revolutionary 
movement and imprisoned or exiled those who took part 
in it. 

The nihilist propaganda of words now passed into a propa¬ 
ganda of deeds. Since the government ruled by terror, it was 
henceforth to be fought with terror. A secret Political 
committee at St. Petersburg condemned to death terrorism 
a number of prominent officials, spies, and members of the 
hated Third Section, and in some cases succeeded in assassin- 


1 See page 376, note 1. 

2 Latin nihil, “nothing.” The term was first introduced by Turgenev in his 
novel, Fathers and Sons. 


Russia 


5i° 



Church of the Resurrection of Christ, Petrograd 

Built on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated. 


ating them. The terrorists were few in number, but their 
fearlessness made them extremely dangerous. 

Coercion having failed to stamp out nihilism, Alexander II 
adopted conciliation. A scheme was drawn up, providing 
Assassination some sort constitution and representative 
of Alexander parliament for Russia. The very day when the 
tsar reluctantly consented to it, he was killed by 
a bomb while driving to his palace in the capital. 




Alexander III 


5ii 


140 . Alexander III, 1881-1894 

The revolutionary party issued a manifesto offering to 
refrain from further terrorism provided a representative as¬ 
sembly elected on the basis of manhood suffrage ]y[ an if est0 of 
was summoned, and freedom of the press, of the revoiu- 
speech, and of public meeting was granted. These tlomsts 
were the only means, the manifesto declared, by which the 
country could secure tranquility. But Alexander III, un¬ 
deterred by his father’s fate, continued to be “ Autocrat of 
all the Russias.” 

The evil genius behind the throne now appeared in the 
person of the tsar’s former tutor, Pobedonostsev, who had 
risen to be procurator, or secular chairman, of the pobedonos- 
Holy Synod. This position at the head of the tsev 
governing body of the Orthodox Church enabled him to exercise 
immense influence upon ecclesiastical affairs, and hence upon 
the government, since Church and State were one in Russia. 
To Pobedonostsev liberalism was anathema. He has left a 
presentation of his opinions in his Reflections of a Russian 
Statesman} We read here that a constitutional system is the 
“great political lie which dominates our age”; that a repre¬ 
sentative parliament is merely an institution “serving for the 
satisfaction of the personal ambition, vanity, and self-interest 
of its members”; and that democracy produces “the most 
complicated and the most burdensome system of government 
recorded in the history of humanity.” The procurator of the 
Holy Synod really believed all that, and he lost no opportunity 
of instilling his views into the mind of his royal master. 

Another minister upon whom Alexander III leaned was 
Plehve, director of the state police. Plehve ferreted out and 
punished the leading terrorists so remorselessly piehve 
that revolutionary nihilism almost disappeared. 

It was bound to disappear in any event. A few men and 
women, however heroic and determined, could not overthrow 
an autocracy which commanded the support of the official 

1 English translation, 1898. 


512 


Russia 


classes, of the Orthodox Church with its tens of thousands of 
priests, and of the stolid, conservative peasants, who formed the 
bulk of the population. As one of the terrorists regretfully 
confessed, terrorism was merely an “exercise in the art of 
self-sacrifice.” 

Pobedonostsev, Plehve, and the other reactionaries sur¬ 
rounding the tsar were responsible for the efforts made to 
Russification un ^ t ^ ie em pi re by compelling all its non-Russian 
inhabitants to use the Russian language, accept 
Russian customs, and worship according to the rites of the 
Orthodox Church. The policy of “one Russia, one creed, and 
one tsar” had been occasionally followed in the reigns of 
Nicholas I and Alexander II. It became systematic under 
Alexander III and led to severe treatment of the Finns, Es- 
thonians, Letts, Lithuanians, Poles, and Germans. In the 
case of the Jews, persecution sometimes resulted in the organ¬ 
ized massacres known as “pogroms,” which were carried out 
by mobs in the cities, often with the connivance of the officials. 
Thousands of Jews, in consequence, fled to the United States 
and other countries, cherishing fierce hatred of all things Rus¬ 
sian. 

If Russia during the reign of the third Alexander seemed to 
be politically dead, economically she made rapid progress. 
Industrial It was at this time that the country, for centuries 
Russia almost wholly agricultural, began to be industrial¬ 

ized. The emancipation of the serfs allowed many of them to 
congregate in the cities, where they furnished an abundant 
supply of cheap labor. The government also started railroad 
building on an extensive scale, and by the grant of special 
privileges induced foreign capitalists to invest in Russian coal 
mines, iron mines, oil fields, and other natural resources. Fac¬ 
tories sprang up like mushrooms, and millions of Russians, 
especially in the western portion of the empire, became factory 
workers. So tremendous a change could not fail to affect the 
life of the people in many ways. Old cities grew rapidly, and 
new cities developed. A middle class appeared, together with 
an industrial proletariat more intelligent and far less con- 


Nicholas II 


5 X 3 

servative than the peasantry. The workingmen organized 
trade unions, conducted strikes, and as in Germany lent a 
receptive ear to socialistic agitators against autocracy. These 
middle and lower classes were fertile soil for the seeds of revo¬ 
lution. 

141. Nicholas II, 1894-1914 

The accession of Nicholas II brought no change in the politi¬ 
cal situation. The young man was amiable and well-meaning, 
but as much an autocrat by nature as any of his Maintenance 
predecessors. “ Devoting all my efforts to the of autocracy 
prosperity of the nation,” he announced, “I will preserve the 
principles of autocracy as firmly 
and unswervingly as my late 
father.” These were not idle 
words. The tsar kept in office 
both Pobedonostsev and Plehve, 
promoting the latter to the im¬ 
portant post of minister of the 
interior, with almost dictatorial 
powers. These two reactionaries 
redoubled their efforts to keep 
Russia “frozen.” Teachers, stu¬ 
dents, journalists, professional 
men, in fact, every one who 
dared think aloud suffered under 
the iron regime. The suppres¬ 
sion of newspapers and the re¬ 
moval of university professors 
for liberal utterances were common occurrences. No person 
was secure against arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, exile, or 
execution. 

The opposition to autocracy, which had lain dormant during 
the reign of Alexander III, revived during that of Nicholas II. 
Not only the intelligentsia , but also the middle Popular 
and lower classes now espoused the liberal cause. dlscontent 
Enlightened members of the nobility, as in France before the 



Nicholas II 


5i4 


Russia 


Revolution, added their voices to the rising volume of criticism. 
Then came the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), revealing 
in pitiless fashion the government’s incapacity and corruption. 
The assassination of Plehve, which occurred at this time, was 
a tell-tale symptom of the popular discontent. 

On Sunday, January 22, 1905, an event occurred which 
stirred public feeling to its depths. A radical priest, Gapon 
“Red byname, organized a procession of working people, 

Sunday” both men an d wome n, to march through the streets 

of the capital and lay their grievances before the “Little Father” 
in person. They had no faith in the promises of any of his 
officials. The demonstrators reached the Winter Palace to 
find, not the tsar, but Cossacks, and to be greeted with volleys 
of musketry. This was the massacre of “Red Sunday.” 

The months which followed witnessed an epidemic of strikes 
throughout Russia. Every strike had a twofold purpose —■ 
The general the improvement of economic conditions and the 
stnke securing of a constitution. In October, 1905, a 

general strike began in St. Petersburg and other large cities, 
together with a stoppage of railway transportation all over the 
empire. The strike fever extended to the middle class; teachers 
dismissed school and judges court; merchants closed their 
stores and doctors their offices; even the ballet dancers refused 
to dance. It was passive resistance to autocracy on the part 
of an entire nation. 

With life in Russia virtually at a standstill, no alternative 
remained to the government but submission. The tsar dis- 
The October missed Pobedonostsev and issued a manifesto 
manifesto promising freedom of conscience, speech, meeting, 
and association — the elementary rights of citizenship. He 
further promised that a representative assembly (Duma) should 
be elected on a wide franchise, and that henceforth no law 
should be valid without the Duma’s consent. Russia was at 
last to have the free institutions which were no longer novelties 
in western Europe. 

The first Russian parliament, known as the “Duma of the 
National Indignation,” met in 1906. It was opened by 


Nicholas II 


5 1 5 


Nicholas II in person. The members, scarcely without ex¬ 
ception, represented all the elements in Russian life opposed to 
autocracy. A struggle with the government occu- The first 
pied the entire session. The Duma wanted the Duma 
tsar’s ministers to be responsible to it, as the only means of 
giving the people control over the officials. The tsar would not 
accept any further limitation of his authority, and at length 
cut the matter short by dissolving the assembly. Its failure 
to cooperate with him was a “cruel disappointment” to this 
sorely tried autocrat. 

Three other Dumas met between 1907 and 1914. The 
tsar so modified suffrage qualifications that the membership 
was confined mainly to large landowners, wealthy Later 
manufacturers, and other representatives of the Dumas 
propertied, conservative classes. They accomplished some 
useful legislation, but did not succeed in winning liberty for the 
people. When the World War broke out, autocracy seemed 
to be as firmly seated as ever in Russia. 

Studies 

x. On an outline map indicate the chief European territories acquired by Russia 
in the nineteenth century. 2. Explain the following: (a) Holy Synod; ( b) Third 
Section; (c) zemstvos; (d) Yiddish language; (e) intelligentsia; (J) the Decem¬ 
brists; and ( g ) Duma. 3. Why has Russia been called the “adopted child” of 
Europe? 4. Why was the character and personality of the tsars always an impor¬ 
tant factor in Russian history? 5. Comment on the tsar’s title “Autocrat of all 
the Russias.” 6. What was meant by calling the Russian imperial government 
"* a despotism tempered by assassination”? 7. Show that Russian nihilism was not 
the same thing as anarchism. 8. Contrast the methods of Russification with those 
of Americanization. 9. Account for the slow progress of liberalism in Russia. 


CHAPTER XX 


TURKEY AND THE BALKAN STATES 


142. The Balkan Peoples 

The Balkan Peninsula divides less sharply from the rest 
of the Continent than the Italian and Iberian peninsulas. The 
The Balkan northern boundary is formed by rivers rather 
Peninsula than by mountains. It extends from the mouths 
of the Danube to the junction of that stream with the Save, at 
Belgrade, and thence follows the course of the Save and the 
Kulpa to the Adriatic Sea, near Fiume. In its general contour 
the peninsula resembles an inverted triangle, the apex of which 
ends in the Morea (anciently the Peloponnesus). Examination 
of a physical map shows that the surface is almost entirely 
mountainous, the only extensive plains being those formed by 
the valleys of the Danube and the Maritza, and the basin of 
Thessaly. The line of the Balkans clearly separates the upper 
from the lower portion of the peninsula, but so many routes 
cross them that they have always formed simply an obstacle, 
never a barrier, to invading peoples from the north. Owing 
to the distribution of the mountain ranges, the principal rivers 
empty into the Black Sea and the vEgean, rather than into the 
Adriatic. The best harbors and most numerous islands are 
also located on the eastern side of the peninsula. The Balkans, 
in fact, form a part of the Near East, and their history during 
modern times is indissolubly linked with the Eastern Question. 

No other part of Europe of equal extent contains so many 
Inhabitants different peoples as the Balkan Peninsula. The 
of the Balkan original inhabitants were Illyrians, represented 
to-day by the Albanians. The Greeks rank as the 
next oldest inhabitants of the peninsula, though the original 

516 


The Balkan Peoples 517 

purity of their blood has been adulterated by intermixture 
with Albanians and Slavs. Toward the end of the sixth cen¬ 
tury a.d., the Serbo-Croats began to leave their homes among 
the Carpathians and to occupy the region south of the Danube. 
The Bulgarians, a people of remotely Asiatic origin and akin 
to the Magyars and Turks, first appeared in the seventh cen¬ 
tury. They adopted the Slavic speech, religion, and culture 
of the Serbo-Croats. The Rumanians claim descent from the 
Roman colonists of Dacia north of the Danube; they seem to 
be, however, chiefly the descendants of the Slavic Vlachs or 
Wallachs, who are also found in Bessarabia and Transylvania. 
The Turks descend from the Ottoman invaders of the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries and from later immigrants. Inter¬ 
marriage with their Christian captives and converts from 
Christianity to Islam has made the Turks substantially Euro¬ 
pean in physique. The Turkish population is nowhere found in 
compact masses except in northeastern Bulgaria and in the 
vicinity of Adrianople and Constantinople. 

As long as the Ottoman power prevailed in the Balkan 
peninsula, Turkish was the language officially used. The 
Serbo-Croats and the Bulgarians preserved their _ 

° ^ Languages 

Slavic speech, but borrowed many words from 

Turkish. The same is true of Rumanian, though grammatically 
it belongs to the Latin or Romance family of languages. Even 
modern Greek, as spoken, contains a large number of Turkish 
terms. These do not appear in the literary language, which 
attempts to reproduce the Greek of classic antiquity. The 
Albanian language has high interest to the philologist, as 
a very ancient Indo-European tongue and the only surviving 
representative of the primitive speech of the peninsula. 

Besides the Turks, about half of the Albanians, many Serbo- 
Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and some of the Bulgarians 

are Moslems. The bulk of the Christian popula- _ . 

Religions 

tion belongs to the Greek Church, which in doctrine 
and ritual is almost identical with the Orthodox Church of 
Russia. Roman Catholicism finds nearly all its adherents in 
this part of Europe among the Serbo-Croats, who settled 


5i8 


Turkey and the Balkan States 


upon the Adriatic coast and came there into contact with Latin 
civilization. 

The Balkan Peninsula, like Russia, has lagged behind western 

Europe in economic development. Its peoples are mainly small 

farmers, tilling the soil with rude implements, or 
Backward- , , ’■ 1 & 1 _ . . , ’ 

ness of the herdsmen who keep nocks of sheep and goats. 

Balkan What commerce exists is almost entirely conducted 

Peninsula 

by Greeks and Jews. The principal explanation 
of this backwardness must be sought in Turkish misgovern- 
ment, corruption, and tyranny, prolonged for centuries. 


143 . The Ottoman Turks 

The empire of the Ottoman Turks formed a typical Oriental 
despotism. The sultan was not only lord of the Turkish realm 
The Otto- in both Asia and Europe, but also the caliph, or 
man Empire spiritual head, of all Islam. He lived shut up in 
his seraglio at Constantinople and depended upon his vizier 
(prime minister) and divan (council of ministers) to execute 
his will. Each province had a pasha (governor) nominally 
subject to the sultan, but more often than not practically inde¬ 
pendent of him. The professional soldiers known as Janizaries, 
who at first had been exclusively recruited from Christian chil¬ 
dren, comprised the standing army. 

Only those who accepted Islam were citizens of the Ottoman 
Empire. The Turks tolerated the presence of Christians, but 
Turks and deprived them of all political rights. Unbelievers 
Christians could not hold any civil office or serve in the 
army. They also had to pay heavy taxes not imposed upon 
Moslems. Some Christians, as we have seen, accepted the 
faith of their conquerors in order to secure the privileges of 
citizenship. Even including these converts, the Turks in south¬ 
eastern Europe remained a small minority of the population. 
Impassable barriers, raised by differences of race, language, 
religion, and customs, separated them from their subjects. 

. The Turks ruled the “Christian cattle” only to exploit 
them. The taxes were farmed out to collectors, who squeezed 


itude 28° East from Greenwich 32 




















































































































Montenegro and Serbia 519 

all they could out of the peasantry. Under this system far 
more money went into the pockets of the tax-gatherer than 
into the public treasury. An incredible corruption Rule of the 
paralyzed the entire administration. Officials pur- Turks 
chased their appointment, and once in office depended on 
bribery and corruption to eke out their salaries. Real govern¬ 
ment in the interest of the people did not exist. 

The Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century showed plain 
signs of the blight which inevitably descends upon states built 
up by the sword and maintained only by the Decadence 
sword. Few of its despotic sovereigns possessed of Turke y 
real ability, and the control of affairs passed more and more 
into the hands of self-seeking ministers and favorites. The 
Janizaries, a turbulent body, often used their power to set up 
and depose sultans at will. The weakness of the central admin¬ 
istration was reflected in the provinces, where the pashas 
acquired substantial independence and in many instances made 
their power hereditary. Turkey’s internal decadence offered a 
promising opportunity for its partition among European powers. 

Ever since the fateful year, 1683, 1 the Turks had lost ground 
in Europe. Austria soon recovered Hungary, Transylvania, 
and much of Croatia and Slavonia. Russia under Dismember _ 
Catherine II seized the Crimea, with the adjoining ment of 
territory, and under Alexander I took Bessarabia. Turkey 
The settlement of 1815 made the Ionian Islands a British pro¬ 
tectorate. 2 Then, as the nineteenth century progressed, the 
Christian peoples of the Balkans, stirred by the same enthu¬ 
siasm for nationality which had moved Italians, Germans, 
Belgians, Poles, and Bohemians, threw off the Ottoman yoke 
and declared for freedom. The dismemberment of Turkey 
began. 

144. Montenegro and Serbia 

The warlike Serbo-Croats of Montenegro never fully accepted 
Ottoman sovereignty. A corner of the “Black Mountain” 
country held out for four hundred years against the Turks. One 

2 See page 355. 


See page 206. 


520 


Turkey and the Balkan States 

of the greatest of Montenegrin heroes is Ivan, who, when the 
enemy in the sixteenth century pressed in from all sides, with- 
Montenegro drew to the inaccessible heights of Cetigne, where 
independent the capital of the little principality has ever since 
been located. According to the national legend, Ivan still sleeps 
in a mountain cave — to awake when the hour strikes for the 
expulsion of the “infidel.” The independence of Montenegro 
was finally recognized by the sultan in 1799. 

Montenegro remained a principality until 1910, when Prince 
Nicholas, after a reign of half a century, assumed the title of 
Montenegro king. A new constitution, which went into effect 
a kingdom fi ve y ears previously, established a national par¬ 
liament elected by manhood suffrage. The tiny Montenegrin 
kingdom thus took a place among liberal monarchies. 

The Serbo-Croats of Serbia have a memorable history. In 
the fourteenth century one of their rulers, Stephen Dushan, 
Medieval built up an empire which covered nearly the entire 
Serbia Balkan Peninsula from the Danube to the Gulf of 

Corinth and from the Adriatic to the iEgean. It was Dushan’s 
ambition to unite Serbians, Greeks, and Bulgarians, and by 
their union to prevent the Ottoman power from taking root in 
southeastern Europe. The Serbian Empire did not long sur¬ 
vive its founder, however, and completely disappeared as a 
result of the Turkish victory in the battle of Kossovo (1389). 

After Kossovo Serbia existed for seventy years as a state 
tributary to Turkey. The country was then formally annexed 
Serbia under by the sultans, who held it until the opening of the 
the Turks nineteenth century. All this time the Serbians 
never forgot their glorious past. The exploits of Stephen 
Dushan and other national heroes were handed down by min¬ 
strels, who secretly assembled the peasants and sang to them 
of the days when Serbia held first place in the Balkans. A 
people with such memories could never be altogether enslaved. 

The first founder of modern Serbia was Karageorge (“Black 
Revolts of George ”), a peasant’s son. The uprising which 
the Serbians he led in 1804 cleared the country of the Turks, 
but they soon regained it. The Serbians rose again in 1815, this 


Greece 


521 


time under the leadership of the peasant Milosh. Supported 
by Russia, Serbia managed to extort from the sultan the privi¬ 
lege of self-government, with Milosh as hereditary prince. 

The Serbians soon showed that they could rule them¬ 
selves, as well as fight valiantly against Turkish tyranny. 
After winning freedom they proceeded to make Serbia a 
over their assembly of warriors into a genuine km s dom 
representative body. They were the first of the Balkan peoples 
to set up a constitutional government. Serbia secured complete 
independence of Turkey in 1878 and four years later became a 
kingdom. The ruler in 1914 was Peter I, a grandson of the 
heroic Karageorge. 

145 . Greece 

The Greeks had not been a free people since their conquest 
by the Romans in the second century b.c. Byzantines, crusad¬ 
ing Franks, and Venetians occupied Greece during Greece under 
medieval times. By the middle of the fifteenth cen- foreign swa y 
tury the entire country came under the Turks, whose dominion 
endured until the nineteenth century had run one-quarter of 
its course. 

The loss of freedom by the Greeks did not extinguish their 
sense of nationality. The Greek Church, to which all belonged, 
fostered national sentiment, both by keeping alive Greek 
hostility to the “ infidel ” and by preserving in its natl ° nallt y 
services something more of the old Greek language than the 
.vernacular of the country contained. A great scholar, Ada- 
mantios Korais (1748-1833), made it his lifework to create a 
literary language for the Greeks of his day. By extending the 
knowledge of the ancient classics among his countrymen, 
Korais helped greatly to revive their memories of the free 
Greece which had thrown back the Persian hordes at Marathon, 
at Salamis, and at Plataea. A secret society called Hetairia 
Philike (Association of Friends) also arose, and like the Italian 
Carbonari carried on revolutionary propaganda far and wide. 

The Greeks first raised the standard of revolt in 1821. Volun¬ 
teers from every European country, as well as a few Americans, 


5 22 


Turkey and the Balkan States 


came to help them. 1 The powers at first stood coldly by, for 
Metternich, the presiding genius of the Concert of Europe, con- 
The Greek sidered the Greeks simply rebels against “legiti- 
Revoiution, mate ” Ottoman authority. As the struggle pro- 
1821-1829 C eeded and the Greeks seemed likely to be over¬ 

whelmed, public opinion in Great Britain and France increas¬ 
ingly favored intervention, and the accession of Nicholas I in 
1825 brought to the throne a tsar ready to follow the tradi¬ 
tional Russian policy toward the Turks. The three powers 
finally agreed to demand that Greece be made, like Serbia, a 
self-governing state under Turkish sovereignty. When the 
sultan refused this arrangement, an allied fleet destroyed the 
Turkish navy at Navarino, a French army drove the Turks 
out of the Morea, and the Russians, crossing the Balkans, 
moved upon Constantinople. The sultan had to yield, and in 
1829 signed a treaty which granted complete independence 
to central and southern Greece. 

Greek patriots wanted a republican government, but the 
European powers set up a monarchy. A Bavarian prince wore 
Kingdom of the crown until 1862, when a popular uprising 
Greece drove him out with his German soldiers and Ger¬ 

man courtiers. A Danish prince then became king, with the 
title of George I. 2 Greece at this time received a new and 
liberal constitution. 

The kingdom of Greece, as originally established, com¬ 
prised only a small part of ancient Hellas. More than half of 
Pan- the Greek people remained under Turkish rule, # 

Hellenism distributed in Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, 
Thrace, the Ionian Islands, the islands of the iEgean, Crete, 
Cyprus, and the western coast of Asia Minor (the classic 
Ionia). 3 A Pan-Hellenic movement soon began to recover as 
much as possible of these regions from the Turks. Great Britain 


1 The most famous of these Philhellenes was Lord Byron. Read his poems: 
“Greece” (The Corsair, canto iii, lines 1-54); “Modem Greece” (Childe Harold , 
canto ii, stanzas 83-92); “The Death of Greece” (The Giaour, lines 68-141); 
and “The Isles of Greece” {Don Juan, canto iii, between stanzas 86 and 87). 

2 Succeeded in 1913 by his son, Constantine I. 

3 See the map facing page 528. 





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The Crimean War and Treaty of Paris 523 

fostered it in 1863-1864 by ceding the Ionian Islands, and in 
1881 by inducing the sultan to relinquish Thessaly. The 
Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, which will be described presently, 
gave Greece southern Epirus, a valuable part of Macedonia, 
Crete, and many smaller islands. When the World War broke 
out and Turkey sided with the Central Powers, it was the 
hope of the Greek premier, Venizelos, that Greece might now 
completely realize her Pan-Hellenic ambitions by entering 
the struggle on the side of the Allies. 


146. The Crimean War, 1854-1856, and the Treaty of Paris 



The successful revolutions in Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece 
pointed to the impending dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. 
Such, at Russia and 
least, Turkey 
was the belief of 
Nicholas I. He 
once remarked to the 
British ambassador 
at St. Petersburg: 

“We have on. our 
hands a sick man — 
a very sick man; it 
will be a great mis¬ 
fortune if one of 
these days he should 
slip away from us, 
especially before all 
necessary arrange¬ 
ments were made.” 

The arrangements 
hinted at by the tsar 
involved a partition 
of the remaining 
Turkish possessions 
between Great Brit- 


“What Nicholas Heard in the Shell” 

A cartoon by Sir John Tenniel which appeared in the 
English journal Punch for June io, 1854. The tsar is 
shown holding a bombshell to his ear and, as he listens 
to it (as children do to sea shells), having a vision of 
armed men. 




5 2 4 


Turkey and the Balkan States 


ain and Russia, the former taking Crete and Egypt, the 
latter securing the Balkan provinces. The British ministry, 
however, refused to have anything to do with a scheme which 
would have placed Constantinople, the gate of the Black Sea and 
the Mediterranean, under the Russian flag. Nicholas I then 
determined to settle the Eastern Question himself. An oppor¬ 
tunity to do so arose in 1853, following the sultan’s rejection of 
a demand made by the tsar that all Greek Christians in the 
Ottoman Empire be placed under Russian protection. Had the 
sultan yielded, Russia would have been enabled to interfere 

constantly in the affairs 
of Turkey. The dispute 
between the two coun¬ 
tries soon resulted in an 
open rupture. 

The Turks did not 
fight alone. Great Britain 

Coalition supported 

against them be- 

Russia £ ai 

cause of the 

fear that the downfall of 
the Ottoman Empire 
would be followed by 
the Russian occupation of Constantinople and Russian con¬ 
trol of the eastern Mediterranean, thus menacing British 
communications with India. France joined Great Britain, prin¬ 
cipally because the adventurous Napoleon III, who had recently 
become emperor, wished to pay off the grudges against Russia 
which Napoleon I had accumulated. 1 ^ Count Cavour and Victor 
Emmanuel II added the Sardinian kingdom to the alliance, in 
order to further their plans for the unification of Italy. 2 The 
Russians fought alone, for both Austria and Prussia preserved 
neutrality. 

The war was confined to the Crimea, where the allies sought 
to capture Sevastopol, Russia’s naval base on the Black Sea. 
The siege lasted eleven months. It proved to be a difficult 

1 See pages 393 - 394 - 2 See pages 399-400. 








The Crimean War and Treaty of Paris 52 5 

operation, for Russian reinforcements continually entered the 
place by the northern roads, while the allied armies could only 
be maintained by sea. Both sides suffered fear- siege of 
fully from the winter weather, lack of food, and Sevastopol 
inadequate hospital service. More men lost their lives through 
disease than in the bloody 
battles of the Alma, of 
Balaklava (celebrated in 
Tennyson’s poem, The 
Charge of the Light Brigade ), 
and of Inkermann. After 
the fall of Sevastopol, 

Russia withdrew from the 
unequal contest. 1 

The conditions of peace 
were drawn up by repre¬ 
sentatives of Treaty of 
all the great Pans > 1856 
powers, meeting at Paris. 

The treaty provided that 
the Black Sea should be 
neutralized, neither Russia 
nor Turkey being allowed to 
build arsenals on its coasts 
or to maintain naval craft 
in its waters. This pro¬ 
hibition, however, was soon 
ignored by Russia. The 
Dardanelles and the Bos¬ 
porus were also to be kept 
closed to foreign warships, 
as long as Turkey remained 
at peace with her neighbors. 

The most important clause of the treaty guaranteed the 
integrity of the sultan’s possessions, only exacting from him 
promises of freedom of worship and better government for his 

1 Read Sevastopol by the Russian novelist Tolstoi. 



Florence Nightingale 

Miss Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) did re* 
markable work during the Crimean War for the 
relief of sick and wounded British soldiers. To 
her self-sacrificing labors are also due many im¬ 
provements in hospital management, sanitation, 
and the training of nurses. 







526 Turkey and the Balkan States 

Christian subjects. The promises were never kept; and the 
lot of Christians in the Ottoman dominions became harder 
than ever. 

The Treaty of Paris thus gave a new lease of life to the decrepit 
Ottoman Empire. In their anxiety to keep Russia out of Con- 
Turkey and stantinople, Great Britain and France abandoned 
the European the tradition, which had come down from the cru¬ 
sades, that the Turks were a barbarous people 
and the enemies of civilization. Turkey was to be treated 
henceforth as no longer outside the pale, but as a respectable 
member of the European family of nations. 


147. Rumania 

The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire recommenced 
soon after the Treaty of Paris. Turkey’s principalities of Mol- 
Moldavia and davia and Wallachia had been semi-independent 
Waiiachia under a Russian protectorate since 1829. They 
command the lower Danube, and their acquisition would have 
enabled Russia to control the navigation of the most important 
river of Europe. Consequently, the diplomats at Paris con¬ 
verted Moldavia and Wallachia into self-governing states, with 
Turkey as their nominal overlord. The Rumanians, who 
inhabit both principalities, desired, however, to form a united 
nation. The powers and the sultan gave a grudging consent, 
and in 1862 the new state of Rumania came into existence. 

After being governed for several years by a native prince, 
the Rumanians in 1866 took Charles I, 1 a member of the Hohen- 
The Rumanian zollern family, as their ruler. He built up a large 
kingdom army, provided it with Prussian artillery, and had 
it drilled by Prussian officers. These military reforms enabled 
Rumania to be an effective ally of Russia in the Russo-Turkish 
War of the ’seventies. As her reward, Rumania gained com¬ 
plete independence in 1878. Three years later Prince Charles 
assumed a kingly crown. 

The population of Rumania numbered about 'Seven millions 
1 Succeeded in 1914 by his nephew, Ferdinand I. 


Schuvalov, second Russian plenipotentiary. 


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CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE BOSPORUS 


























The Russo-Turkish War and Treaty of Berlin 527 

in 1914. Three-fourths as many more lived in Transylvania 
and Bukowina, as subjects of the Dual Monarchy, and in the 
Russian province of Bessarabia. Rumania, like « Unre _ 
Italy, thus had her “unredeemed” peoples, and deemed 
like Italy, she entered the World War principally Rumama 
to liberate them from an alien rule. 


148. The Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878, and the Treaty of 

Berlin 

Russia’s desire to rescue the Christians of the Balkans from 
oppression and, incidentally, to take Constantinople, brought 
about another war between the two countries, origin of the 
Sufficient justification for it existed in the cruelty Russo- 
with which Turkish soldiers had suppressed an Turklsh War 
insurrection of the Bulgarians. The atrocities committed in 
Bulgaria aroused all Europe. Gladstone issued from retirement 
to denounce the “ unspeakable Turk ” and to demand that 
Great Britain join with the other powers in driving him back 
into Asia. Unfortunately, not Gladstone, but Disraeli was then 
prime minister, and in Disraeli’s mind British interests in 
supporting Turkey against Russia outweighed the sufferings 
of Christians in the Balkans. Great Britain, therefore, did 
nothing, but Montenegro and Serbia boldly declared war on 
the sultan. Many Russians volunteered to help their Slav 
brethren, and at length the tsar (Alexander III) decided upon 
intervention. 

This time western Europe remained neutral and watched 
the duel between Slav and Turk. Russian armies promptly 
crossed the Danube, only to be held up for months Course of the 
before the fortress of Plevna in Bulgaria. The r U sso- 
Turks fought well, and their defense of Plevna is !^£ kish 
celebrated in military annals. Its fall allowed the 
tsar’s troops to advance within sight of the Golden Horn. 
Here they paused, for both Great Britain and Austria- 
Hungary threatened hostilities, in case Russia occupied 
Constantinople. 


528 Turkey and the Balkan States 

Russia and Turkey now made peace. By the Treaty of San 
Stefano 1 the sultan agreed to the creation of a new state, 
Treaty of Greater Bulgaria, stretching from the Danube to 
San stefano the ^Egean and including nearly all Macedonia. 
Both Greece and Serbia protested vigorously against this 
arrangement, which upset their own plans for expansion in the 
Balkans. Far more serious was the opposition of the Western 
powers. Austria did not relish the idea of a strong Balkan 
state lying across her path to the Mediterranean, while Great 
Britain feared that Greater Bulgaria would be merely the will¬ 
ing tool of Russia. A general European conflict threatened, 
until the tsar agreed to submit the treaty to revision by an 
international congress to be held at Berlin, under Bismarck’s 
presidency. 

The assembled diplomats attempted still another solution of 
the Eastern Question. The Treaty of Berlin recognized Monte- 
Treaty of negro, Serbia, and Rumania as sovereign states, 

Berlin wholly independent of Turkey. That part of Bul¬ 

garia between the Danube and the Balkans became a self- 
governing principality under Turkish sovereignty. Bulgaria 
south of the Balkans — Eastern Rumelia — went back to the 
sultan, together with Macedonia. Austria-Hungary was allowed 
to occupy and administer the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. Great Britain was given the right to hold the 
island of Cyprus. These arrangements having been made, the 
powers again solemnly guaranteed the “integrity” of the 
sultan’s remaining possessions in Europe. 


149. Bulgaria 

Diplomacy did not bring peace to the Balkans. The inhabit- 
Union of ants Eastern Rumelia in 1885 revolted against 
Eastern Ru- the Turks and united with Bulgaria. The 
Bulgaria d European powers protested against this infrac¬ 
tion of the Berlin treaty, but took no measures 
to prevent the union of the two Bulgarian territories. 

1 A suburb of Constantinople. 



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Balkan Wars and Treaty of Bukharest 5 2 9 

Bulgaria owed her existence to Russia, and for a number of 
years the influence of that country predominated in the new 
principality. Russian officials conducted the gov- Russia and 
ernment, organized the army, and directed Bui- Bulgana 
garian policies. The first ruler was a German prince, Alexander 
of Battenberg. 

Alexander devel¬ 
oped an independ- 
ent spirit and 
more and more 
relied upon native 
leaders, whose 
motto was “Bul¬ 
garia for the Bul¬ 
garians.” Russia 
at length forced 
his abdication. 

The new ruler, 

Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, proved to be no more tractable than 
his predecessor. As time passed, the Bulgarians became com¬ 
pletely alienated from their Russian protectors. 

Bulgaria remained tributary to the sultan until The BuJ _ 
1908. By that time she had grown strong enough garian 
to repudiate another clause of the Berlin treaty ^s* 10111 
and to set up as an independent kingdom. Ferdinand exchanged 
his princely dignity for the more pretentious title of tsar of the 
Bulgarians. 

150. The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913, and the Treaty of 
Bukharest 

The year 1908 saw also a revolution in the sultan’s dominions. 
This was the work of the Young Turks, a group of patriotic 
reformers who aimed to revive and modernize the The Young 
Ottoman Empire. They won over the army and Turks 
carried through a sudden, almost bloodless coup d’etat. The 
terrified sultan (Abdul Hamid II) had to issue a decree restoring 








53° 


Turkey and the Balkan States 


Macedonia 


the constitution granted by him at his accession in 1876 , but 
abrogated soon afterwards. His despotism vanished, and the 
Ottoman Empire, with an elective parliament, a responsible 
ministry, and a free press took a place among democratic states. 

It soon became evident, however, that the Young Turks were 
nationalists as well as democrats. They intended to weld 
Ottomaniza- together all the peoples of the Ottoman Empire 
tlon into a single nation, with Turkish as the favored 

language and Islam the only privileged faith. Just as the 
Russian policy was one of Russification, so that of the Young 
Turks was one of Ottomanization. 

Cruel oppression and massacres of Christians in various parts 
of the empire followed, particularly in Macedonia. This Turkish 
province was peopled by Greeks, Serbians, and 
Bulgarians. Large numbers of them fled to their 
respective countries, carrying their grievances with them, and 
agitated for war against Turkey. 

The war soon came. Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bul¬ 
garia, forgetting for the moment the jealousies which divided 
, them, came together in a Balkan alliance, issued 
Second Bal- to the sultan an ultimatum demanding self- 
1912-1913* government for Macedonia, and when this was 
refused, promptly began hostilities. They were 
everywhere successful, and Turkey was compelled to give up 
all her European dominions west of a line drawn from Enos 
on the iEgean Sea to Midia on the Black Sea. She likewise 
ceded Crete to Greece. The allies then proceeded to quarrel 
over the disposition of Macedonia. A second Balkan War 
resulted, with Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Rumania, and 
Turkey ranged against Bulgaria. Tsar Ferdinand could not 
cope with so many foes and sued for peace. 

The treaty signed at Bukharest completely altered the aspect 
of the Balkans. Bulgaria surrendered to Rumania districts 
Treaty of south of the Danube, and allowed Greece, Monte- 

Bukharest, negro, and Serbia to annex most of Macedonia. 

1913 

These three states were now nearly doubled in 
size. The Turkish province of Albania became an independent 


The Balkan Wars and Treaty of Bukharest 531 

principality. Turkey, though ignored at the Peace Conference, 
escaped dismemberment and even secured an accession of terri¬ 
tory. The Treaty of Bukharest thus left the Turk in Europe, 
and by sowing seeds of enmity between Bulgaria and her sister 
states helped further to postpone a satisfactory solution of the 
Eastern Question. 


Studies 

1. On an outline map indicate the shrinkage of Turkey in Europe during (a) 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; ( b ) the nineteenth century; and (c) the 
twentieth century. 2 Name in chronological order the states formed from Turkish 
territories in Europe. 3. Name and locate the capitals of the Balkan states. 
4. “The two forces that have constantly undermined the power of Turkey are 
religion and nationality.” How does Turkish history during the last hundred 
years confirm this statement? 5. Mention three occasions in the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury when the Ottoman Empire seemed to be on the point of dissolution. 6. Why 
did Russia favor nationalism in the Balkans and oppose it in other parts of Europe? 
7. Trace on the map the successive steps in the expansion of Greece between 1829 
and 1914. 8. On the map facing page 528, trace the proposed boundaries of Monte¬ 
negro, Serbia, and Bulgaria by the Treaty of San Stefano. 9. Explain the strategic 
value of Constantinople. 10. Why has the Balkan Peninsula been called the 
“danger zone” of Europe? 


CHAPTER XXI 


EXPANSION OF EUROPE IN THE OLD WORLD 
151. Greater Europe 

Colonial expansion, begun by Spaniards and Portuguese 
in the sixteenth century and continued in the seventeenth and 
Expansion of eighteenth centuries by Russians, Dutch, French, 
Europe and English, culminated during the past hundred- 

odd years. It is principally this movement which gives such 
significance to European history. The civilization of Europe, 
as affected by the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revo¬ 
lution, has been spread throughout the world. The languages, 
literatures, religions, laws, and customs of Europe have been 
extended to almost all mankind. 

Great Britain in 1815 was the leading world power. France 
had been well-nigh eliminated as a colonial rival by the Seven 
The British Years’ War, and Holland had lost valuable pos- 
Empire sessions overseas in the revolutionary and Napo¬ 
leonic wars. In America, Great Britain held Canada, some of 
the West India islands, and part of Guiana; in Africa, Cape 
Colony; in Asia, much of India and Ceylon; and in Australia 
the eastern coast. The British Empire continued to grow 
throughout the nineteenth century, until it embraced in 1914 
approximately a fourth of the habitable area of the earth and 
a fourth of the earth’s population. No such wide dominion 
had ever been built up before, either in ancient or medieval 
times. 

The spectacle of the British Empire, so populous, so rich 
Other colo- in natural resources, so far-flung, stirred the im- 
mal empires agination and aroused the envy of the witnessing 
nations. They, also, became eager for possessions in savage or 

532 



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Imperialism 533 

half-civilized lands. France, from the time of Louis Philippe, 
began to conquer northwestern Africa and Madagascar and to 
acquire territories in southeastern Asia. Italy and Germany, 
having attained nationhood, entered into the race for overseas 
dominions. Portugal and Spain annexed new colonies. Diminu¬ 
tive Belgium built up a colonial empire in Africa. Mighty 
Russia spread out eastward over the whole of Siberia and, 
having reached the Pacific, moved southward toward the 
warmer waters of the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, the United 
States expanded across the American continent, acquired the 
Philippines and other dependencies, and stood forth at length 
as an imperial power. Few and unimportant were those regions 
of the world which remained unappropriated at the opening 
of the twentieth century. 

152. Imperialism 

The word “imperialism ” conveniently describes all this 
activity of the different nations in reaching out beyond their 
natural boundaries for colonial dependencies. Im- Aspects of 
perialism, of course, is not a new phenomenon; imperialism 
empire building began almost at the dawn of history. We are 
concerned here only with its most recent aspects. Sometimes 
it leads to the declaration of a protectorate over a region, or, 
perhaps, to the marking off a sphere of influence where other 
powers agree not to interfere. Sometimes it goes no further 
than the securing of concessions in undeveloped countries such 
as Mexico, Brazil, or China. Most commonly, however, im¬ 
perialism results in the complete annexation of a distant terri¬ 
tory, with or without the consent of the inhabitants. 

We saw earlier that the colonial rivalry of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries had been largely inspired Economic 
by the doctrine of mercantilism . 1 Colonies were foundations 
regarded as farms, which, if properly exploited, unpenal " 
would afford necessary supplies of raw materials 
and exclusive markets for the manufactures of the home coun- 


1 See pages 226-227. 


534 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

try. Mercantilist statesmen regulated colonial commerce, in 
order to secure the “favorable balance of trade ” deemed essen¬ 
tial' to national prosperity. Mercantilism was searchingly 
criticized by Adam Smith and other economists of the laissez- 
faire school , 1 but it revived in somewhat altered form during 
the latter part of the nineteenth century. Modern methods of 
manufacture on a large scale now enabled a highly industrial¬ 
ized country to produce more commodities than could be 
profitably used within its own boundaries and among its own 
people. Each country, therefore, wanted the wider markets 
afforded by colonies. Again, modern methods of manufacture 
required more raw materials than could be found within a 
single state, or raw materials only procurable abroad. Hence, 
each state desired to obtain colonies rich in natural resources. 
Industrial development also led to an immense accumulation 
of wealth, which capitalists sought to invest in undeveloped 
territories. Finally, colonies seemed desirable to provide for 
surplus population. The number of people in Europe more 
than doubled in the nineteenth century, and the consequent 
crowding at home induced millions of persons to emigrate to 
the United States and other foreign countries where land was 
cheap, wages were high, and the government was liberal and 
democratic. To prevent the loss of so many energetic and intel¬ 
ligent citizens, European nations endeavored to obtain colonial 
dependencies, in which the settlers might preserve their own 
language, culture, and political connection with the fatherland. 
Colonies, then, were prized as markets, as sources of raw mate¬ 
rials, as fields for the investment of capital, and as outlets for 
surplus population. 

The imperialistic ambitions of the great powers more than 
once led them to disregard the rights of weaker nations in 
Imperialism Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world. Thus, 

and Great Britain subdued the two Boer republics in 

nationalism g ou th Africa, Italy attempted to conquer the 

independent nation of Abyssinia, and Great Britain, France, 

Germany, and Russia at one time threatened the integrity of 

1 See page 286. 


535 


The Opening-up of Africa 

China. It should be said, however, that in most cases colonial 
dependencies have been secured only at the expense of savage 
or semi-civilized peoples. Though there are many things to 
condemn in the conduct of the European powers toward their 
subjects, much improvement is to be observed within recent 
years. Great Britain, France, and other colonial states expend 
large sums annually in their dominions for roads, railways, 
schools, medical service, and humanitarian work of various 
sorts. One may be permitted to hope that the European occu¬ 
pation of so much of the world will prove, in the long run, a 
blessing to mankind. 

It has been manifestly impossible for even the most demo¬ 
cratic of modern nations to grant self-government to their rude 
and backward subjects. Where the level of civili- imperialism 
zation is higher, as in Egypt and India, the pre- and 
vailing illiteracy of the inhabitants forms a great democracy 
obstacle in the way of democracy. We have already noted, 
however, that Great Britain during the last century raised round 
herself a circle of self-governing daughters in Canada, Australia, 
and South Africa, and that France permits some of her colonies 
to send representatives to the French legislature . 1 Other in¬ 
stances of the bestowal of free institutions upon native peoples 
will be referred to as we proceed with the story of European 
expansion in Africa and Asia. 


153 . The Opening-up of Africa 

Speaking broadly, Africa consists of an elevated plateau 
with a fringe of unindented coastal plain. Penetration of the 
interior was long delayed by mountain ranges Physical 
which approach close to the sea, by rapids and Afnca 
falls which hinder river navigation, by the barrier of dense 
forests and extensive deserts, and by the unhealthiness of 
the climate in many regions. Though lying almost in sight 
of Europe, Africa remained until our own time the “Dark 
Continent.” 


1 See pages 448 and 464. 


536 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


Africa until 
the nine¬ 
teenth cen¬ 
tury 


As was the country, so were its inhabitants. Europeans 
knew chiefly the Semitic and Hamitic peoples north and east 
„ . , .,. of the Sahara. The Black race, which occupies 
nearly all Africa south of that desert, dwelt by 
itself. Some negroes in the course of time blended more or 
less with Hamites, giving rise to the Bantu-speaking peoples. 
To these elements of the native population must be added the 
curious Pygmies in the equatorial districts, together with the 
Hottentots and Bushmen in the extreme south. 

Little more than the Mediterranean shore of Africa was 
known in antiquity. Here were Egypt, the first home of 
civilization, and Carthage, Rome’s most formi¬ 
dable rival for supremacy. During the earlier 
Middle Ages all North Africa fell under Arab 
domination. Arab missionaries, warriors, and 
slave-hunters also spread along the eastern coast and estab¬ 
lished trading posts as far south as the mouth of the Zambesi 
River. Of this, however, Europe remained ignorant. The 
vast extent of the continent was first revealed to Europeans 
by the Portuguese discoveries in the second half of the 
fifteenth century. The Portuguese imitated the Arabs in 
founding stations upon both the eastern and western coasts, 
where they did a profitable business in ivory, gold, gum, rubber, 
and especially in black men, who were seized and exported by 
thousands annually to be sold as slaves. The merchants of 
Spain, Holland, France, and Great Britain also shared in this 
traffic. Except for the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good 
Hope, Europeans, however, did not try to settle in Africa. 
Nothing tempted them to do so. The shores of the continent 
were plague-ridden, and its interior was supposed to consist of 
barren deserts or of impenetrable forests. Maps of Africa a 
hundred years ago show the interior decorated with pictures 
of the hippopotamus, the elephant, and the negro to conceal 
the ignorance of geographers. 

The penetration of Africa has been mainly accomplished by 
following the course of its four great rivers. In the last decade 



20° Longitude 10° West 0 r Longitude 10° East 20° from 30° Greenwich 40° 




















































































\ 


<? f 


' 






537 


The Opening-up of Africa 


of the eighteenth century the British African Association, then 
recently founded, sent Mungo Park to the Niger. He and 
his immediate successors explored the basin of that The Niger 
river and revealed the existence of the mysterious and the 
city of Timbuktu, an Arab capital never previously Nile basins 
visited by Europeans. The determination of the sources of the 
Nile — a problem which had interested the ancients — met with 
success shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Captain Speke first saw the waters of the lake which he named 
Victoria Nyanza, in honor of England’s queen, and Sir Samuel 
Baker found the smaller lake 
called by him Albert Nyanza, 
in honor of the Prince Consort. 

The discovery of snow-clad 
mountains in this part of 
Africa confirmed what Greek 
geographers had taught regard¬ 
ing the “Mountains of the 
Moon.” 

Meanwhile, an intrepid Scotch 
missionary and explorer, David 
Livingstone, had Basins of the 
traced the course Zambesi and 
of the Zambesi. the Congo 
Starting from the Cape, he 
worked his way northward, 
found the wonderful Victoria Falls, and crossed the continent 
from sea to sea. When on one of his journeys Livingstone 
disappeared for years in Africa, the New York Herald sent 
Henry M. Stanley to find him. Stanley, who was a Welsh¬ 
man by birth and an American by adoption, had led an 
adventurous life as a newspaper correspondent in many 
lands. He found Livingstone in 1871, greeting him in the 
heart of Africa with the historic words, “Dr. Livingstone, I 
presume? ” After the latter’s death, two years later, Stanley 
continued his work and accomplished more than any other 
explorer of Africa. He discovered Lake Albert Edward 



David Livingstone 


538 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 



Nyanza, showed that Lake Tanganyika drained into the Congo, 
and followed that mighty stream all the way to its mouth. 

Stanley’s fascinating nar¬ 
ratives of his travels 1 did 
much to arouse Euro¬ 
pean interest in Africa. 

Mission work in Africa 
went hand in hand with 
African geographical dis¬ 
missions C overy. Not a 

great deal has been ac¬ 
complished in North 
Africa, where Islam is 
supreme from Morocco 
to Egypt and from the 
Mediterranean to io° 
north of the equator. 
Abyssinia, the negro re¬ 
public of Liberia, and 
South Africa, as far as it is white, are entirely Christian. The 
accompanying map shows how mission stations, both Roman 
Catholic and Protestant, have been planted throughout the 
broad belt of heathenism in Central Africa. 


Henry M. Stanley 

After a photograph taken in 1886. 


154 . The Partition of Africa 

The division of Africa among European powers followed 
promptly upon its exploration. Spain, Portugal, Belgium, 
The Spanish Germany, Ita l Yj France, and Great Britain all 
and Portu- profited by the scramble for African territory, 

Africa in particularly during the ’eighties and the ’nineties 
of the last century. The Spanish possessions are 
small, compared with those of the other powers, and, except for 
the northern coast of Morocco, not of great importance. Por¬ 
tugal, however, controls the two valuable regions of Angola 
and Portuguese East Africa. 

1 Especially How I Found Livingstone (1872), Through the Dark Continent (1878),' 
and In Darkest Africa Ci8qo). 



The Partition of Africa 


539 



The possessions of Belgium grew directly out of Stanley’s 
discoveries. He realized what sources of wealth The Belgians 
might be tapped in the rubber, ivory, and palm- m Afnca 
oil of the vast Congo basin and persuaded Leopold II, 




















































































540 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


king of the Belgians, to supply the funds for the establishment 
of trading stations in that part of Africa. The Congo Free 
State, which thus came into being, formed practically Leopold’s 
private property. The forced labor demanded of the natives 
and the cruel punishments inflicted upon them stirred up so 
much criticism in Europe and America that Leopold finally 
converted his African holdings into a colony called the Belgian 
Congo. Its area has now been considerably increased by the 
acquisition of former German territories. 

Soon after Germany attained national unity, she made her 
appearance among colonial powers. Treaties with the native 
The Germans chiefs and arbitrary annexations during the years 
m Africa 1884-1885 resulted in the acquisition of extensive 
regions in Southwest Africa, East Africa, the Cameroons, and 
Togo. They were all conquered by the Allies during the World 
War. 

Italy was another late-comer on the African scene. She 
secured Eritrea on the Red Sea and Italian Somaliland. An 
The Italians Italian attempt to annex Abyssinia ended dis- 
m Africa astrously. Italy’s most important African colony 
is Libya, 1 conquered from Turkey in 1911-1912. The country in 
Turkish hands was misgoverned and undeveloped, but its fertile 
coast is well adapted to agriculture, and even the barren interior 
may become valuable through irrigation. It says much for the 
liberal principles underlying Italian colonial policy that a con¬ 
stitution has recently (1919) been granted to the Libyans. 
Italy’s three African possessions were considerably enlarged 
in 1920 by voluntary cessions of territory from France and 
Great Britain, these powers having augmented their do¬ 
minions in Africa at the expense of Germany. 

The beginnings of French dominion in Africa reach back to 
the seventeenth century, when Louis XIV began to acquire 
The French trading posts along the western coast and in 
m Africa Madagascar. It was not until the nineteenth 
century, however, that the French entered seriously upon 
the work of colonization. France now holds Algeria, the con- 

1 Composed of the two former Turkish provinces of Tripoli and Cyrenaica. 


The Partition of Africa 


54i 


quest of which began in 1830; Tunis, taken from Turkey in 
1881; most of Morocco, a protectorate since 1912 ; the valleys 
of the Senegal and Upper Niger; part of the Guinea coast; 
French Somaliland ; and the island of Madagascar. A glance at 
the map shows that the African possessions of France exceed 
in area those of any other power, but they include the Sahara 
Desert. 

Great Britain has secured, if not the lion’s share, at any rate 
the most valuable share of Africa. Besides extensive posses¬ 
sions on the Guinea coast, she holds a solid block of 

Cape Colony 

territory all the way from the Cape of Good Hope 
to the Mediterranean. Cape Colony was captured from the 
Dutch during the Napoleonic wars. 1 Though small in extent, 
it had great import¬ 
ance as a half-way 
station on the route 
to both India and 
Australia and also as 
a convenient basis 
for expansion north¬ 
ward into the African 
continent. 

The Dutch farmers, 
or Boers, did not take 
readily to 
British rule. 

Many of 


Natal, 

Orange 

Free 

State, 



them, with and the 


Transvaal 


Paul Kruger 


their fami¬ 
lies and flocks, moved from Cape Colony into the unknown 
country beyond. This wholesale emigration — the “ Great 
Trek ” — resulted in the formation of the Boer republics of 
Natal, Orange Free State, and the Transvaal. Natal was soon 
annexed by Great Britain, but the other two republics re¬ 
mained independent. The discovery of the world’s richest 
gold mines in the Transvaal led to a large influx of English- 

1 See pages 229-230 and 355. 


542 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

men, who, since they paid taxes, demanded a share in the 
government. The champion of British interests was Cecil 
Rhodes, an Oxford student who found riches in the Kimberley 
diamond fields and rose to be prime minister of Cape Colony. 
The Dutch settlers, under the lead of President Kruger of the 
Transvaal, were just as determined to keep the government in 
their own hands. Disputes between the two peoples culminated 



The Union of South Africa 


in the South African War (1899-1902), in which the Boers 
were overcome by sheer weight of numbers. 

The war had a happy outcome. Great Britain showed a 
wise liberality toward her former foes and granted them self- 
Union of government. Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free 
South Africa, State, and the Transvaal soon came together in 
1909-1910 th e Union of South Africa. The Union has a 
governor-general appointed by the British Crown, a common 
parliament, and a responsible ministry. Cape Town and 























The Partition of Africa 


543 

Pretoria are the two capitals, and both English and Dutch are 
official languages. 

The Union will ultimately include other British possessions 
in South Africa. Great Britain asserts a protectorate over 
Bechuanaland, which is still very sparsely settled gechuana- 
by Europeans. She also controls the imperial land and 
domain acquired by Cecil Rhodes and called after Rhodesia 
him Rhodesia. This territory alone is three and one-half 
times as large as the British Isles. 

The loyalty of the majority of the Boers to Great Britain was 
demonstrated during the World War. Tinder Louis Botha, 
who had been fhe best Boer general in the South southwest 
African War, they proceeded to conquer German Africa and 
Southwest Africa. They also cooperated with the East Afnca 
British in the conquest of German East Africa. A glance at the 
map shows how extensive are these two former possessions of 
Germany. Great Britain has still other territories in East 
Africa, one of the most valuable being the Uganda Protectorate. 
It contains much fertile land and because of its generally healthy 
climate offers a promising field for European colonization. 

Uganda forms the connecting link between East Africa and 
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The British advance southward 
from Egypt into the basin of the Upper Nile Anglo- 
caused much unrest among its semi-civilized and Egyptian 
Moslem inhabitants. A man called the Mahdi Sudan 
(Leader), who claimed to be a kind of Messiah, stirred up a 
holy war against the invaders. The British and Egyptian 
troops, commanded by General Charles Gordon, who had pre¬ 
viously distinguished himself in China, were shut up in Khar¬ 
tum. After inexcusable delay Gladstone’s ministry, then in 
power, sent out a relief expedition. It arrived at Khartum two 
days after the Mahdi had captured the place and massacred 
Gordon and eleven thousand of his men (1885). More than a 
decade passed before Great Britain wiped off this stain upon her 
arms. Finally another expedition was dispatched under General 
Herbert Kitchener. He annihilated the “dervishes,” as the 
fanatical followers of the Mahdi were called, at the battle of 




544 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


Omdurman, and retook Khartum (1898). Since then the 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan has remained quiet. 

The Egyptians have been subject to foreigners for over 
twenty-four hundred years. The Persians came to Egypt in the 
British sixth century b.c.; then the Macedonians under 

occupation Alexander the Great; then the Romans under 
Julius Caesar; and subsequently the Arabs and the 
Ottoman Turks. Turkish sultans controlled the country until 

the early part of the nine¬ 
teenth century, when the 
able pasha, Mehemet Ali, 
made himself almost an in¬ 
dependent sovereign. His 
successors assumed the title 
of khedive, or ruler. Their 
misgovernment gave Great 
Britain and France an ex¬ 
cuse for setting up a Dual 
Control over Egypt, in the 
interest of European bankers 
who had purchased the 
securities of that country. 
Financial intervention soon 
passed into military occupa¬ 
tion, as the result of a revolt 
against the khedive. It was suppressed by Great Britain alone 
in 1882, France having refused her cooperation. The British 
now had a free hand in Egypt. In 1914, upon the outbreak 
of the war between Great Britain and Turkey, Egypt became 
a British protectorate. 

Once established in Egypt, the British began to make it over. 
They restored order, purified the courts, levied taxes fairly, 
British rule reorganized the finances, paid the public debt, 
m Egypt abolished forced labor, and took measures to im¬ 
prove sanitary conditions. British engineers built a railroad 
along the Nile, together with the famous Assuan Dam and other 
irrigation works which reclaimed millions of acres from the 



Lord Kitchener 
























































































































































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The Partition of Africa 


545 


desert. For the first time in centuries, the peasants were 
assured of peace, justice, and an opportunity to make a 
decent living. Nevertheless, economic prosperity did not 
reconcile the people to foreign rule. The slogan “Egypt for 
the Egyptians” expressed their nationalist aspirations. Great 
Britain declared that she could not possibly accord com¬ 
plete independence to Egypt, on the ground that the country 
was still incapable of maintaining a stable government or of 
adequately safeguarding its own frontiers against foreign ag¬ 
gression. Control of Egypt 
seemed to be necessary for the 
security of the British posses¬ 
sions, both in Africa and Asia. 

However, revolutionary out¬ 
breaks on the part of the 
Egyptians at length led the 
British government to termi¬ 
nate the protectorate over their 
country. Egypt in 1922 thus 
became an independent state. 

The strategic importance of 
Egypt as the doorway to Africa 
will be much in- Ca?e _ to _ 
creased by the Cairo 
completion of the Railway 
Cape-to-Cairo Railway. This 
transcontinental line starts from Cape Town, crosses Bechu- 
analand and Rhodesia, and will ultimately link up with the 
railway already in operation between Khartum, Cairo, and 
Alexandria on the Mediterranean. The unfinished part is in 
the Congo region, where the Belgian government has ceded 
a strip of land to Great Britain, thus making it possible 
| for the road to traverse British territory throughout its en¬ 
tire length of 6944 miles, or 7074 miles, if we include the 
distance between Cairo and Alexandria. As a result of the 
British acquisition of German East Africa, an alternative 
route may be chosen through this former colony of Germany. 



Cecil Rhodes 




546 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


The Cape-to-Cairo Railway owes its inspiration to Cecil 
Rhodes, who dreamed of an “all red ” route across Africa, 



and then with characteristic pluck and energy set out to 
make his dream come true. 

The completion of the Suez Canal has likewise put Egypt on 
the main oceanic highway to the Far East. The canal is a 
Suez Canal monument to the great French engineer, Ferdinand 
de Lesseps. It was opened to traffic in 1869. The 
money for the undertaking came chiefly from European inves¬ 
tors. Some years later, 
the bankrupt khedive 
offered for sale a large 
block of his shares in 
the Suez Canal Com¬ 
pany. Disraeli, who 
was prime minister of 
Great Britain at the 
time, did not neglect 
this opportunity to ad¬ 
vance British imperial¬ 
ism and bought the 
stock. Great Britain 
thus secured a control¬ 
ling interest in the 
enterprise. The canal, 
however, may be freely 
used by the ships of all nations. More than half of the 
voyages from Europe to the Far East are now made through 



Count Ferdinand de Lesseps 










The Opening-up and Partition of Asia 547 

the canal rather than round the Cape of Good Hope. Its 
commercial importance is also indicated by the fact that it 
accommodates every year an amount of shipping approxi¬ 
mately equal to that entering the port of New York from 
foreign countries. 


155 . The Opening-up and Partition of Asia 

The Europeanization of Asia was not’ far advanced at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. Europe knew only Siberia, 
which Russia had appropriated, and those parts of Europe and 
India which had been annexed by Great Britain. Asia 
All western Asia, including Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, 
and Arabia, belonged to the Ottoman Empire and remained 
unaffected by European influence. On the eastern side of the 
continent lay China and Japan, old and civilized but stagnant 
countries, whose backs were turned upon the rest of the world. 
Within the past hundred years, however, European traders, 
missionaries, and soldiers have broken through the barriers 
raised by Oriental peoples, and now almost the whole of Asia 
is either politically or economically dependent upon Europe. 

The Russians were established in Siberia before the close 
of the seventeenth century. 1 Their advance over this enormous 
but thinly peopled region was facilitated by its Russia in 
magnificent rivers, which furnished highways for northern Asia 
explorers and fur traders. Northern Siberia is a waste of swamp 
and tundra, where the terrible climate blocks the mouths of the 
streams with ice and even in summer keeps the ground frozen 
beneath the surface. Farther south comes a great belt of forest, 
the finest timbered area still intact on the face of the earth, 
and still farther south extend treeless steppes, adapted in part to 
agriculture and in part to herding. The country also contains 
much mineral wealth. In order to secure an outlet for Siberian 
products, Russia compelled China to cede the lower Amur Val¬ 
ley with the adjoining seacoast. The Russians in their newly 
acquired territory founded Vladivostok in 1858 as a naval base. 

1 See page 198. 


548 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


The Trans- 

Siberian 

Railway 


Vladivostok is also the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian 
Railway. The western terminus is Petrograd, three thousand 
miles distant. The railway was completed in 
1900 by the imperial government, partly to facili¬ 
tate the movement of troops and military sup¬ 
plies in Siberia and partly to develop that region as a home 
for Russian emigrants and a market for Russian manufactures. 
A branch line extends to Port Arthur in Manchuria and another 
branch to Tientsin and Peking in China. 

Russia also widened her boundaries in central Asia by absorb¬ 
ing Turkestan east of the Caspian and south of Lake Balkash 
„ . , and the Aral Sea. Alarmed by the steady progress 

Great Britain southward of the Russian colossus, Great Britain 
Asia 6ntral began to extend the northern and northwestern 
frontiers of India, in order to secure a mountain 
barrier for her Indian possessions. Half a century of feverish 
fears and restless advances on both sides was ended by the 
Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. It dealt with Persia, 
Afghanistan, and Tibet. 

The Persian kingdom became a buffer state between Russia 
and Great Britain. The northern part of Persia was recog¬ 
nized as a Russian sphere of influence, the southern 
part as a British sphere, and the central part as a 
neutral zone where the two powers pledged themselves not to 
interfere except by mutual consent. The unsettled conditions 
arising out of the World War enabled Persia to rid herself of 
Russian control. With Great Britain she concluded a new 
agreement in 1919, by which the former power guarantees the 
security of the Persian frontiers and promises assistance in 
developing Persian trade and industries. Persia enjoys a con¬ 
stitutional government. Ahmad, the present shah, or king, is a 
well-educated and liberal-minded ruler. 

The kingdom of Afghanistan also became a buffer state. 
Great Britain engaged not to annex any of its territory, while 
Russia, on her side, agreed to regard it as within 
the British sphere of influence and under British 
protection. Though a very mountainous region, Afghanistan 


Persia 


Afghanistan 



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terraces, and bastions present an imposing appearance. 



55 ° Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


Tibet 


contains numerous passes, over which in historic times con¬ 
quering peoples have repeatedly descended into India. 

The Chinese dependency of Tibet was little known until 1904, 
when a British military expedition penetrated to the sacred 
city of Lhasa and obtained some concessions for 
trade within the country. Russia also professed 
to be interested in Tibet. By the Anglo-Russian Con¬ 
vention both nations promised to respect its territorial 
integrity and not to interfere with Chinese sovereignty over 
the country. 

Indo-China, except for the nominally independent state 
of Siam, is now under British and French control. Great 
Britain holds Burma, annexed as recently as 1885, 
and the Straits Settlements with the important 
port of Singapore at the tip of the Malay Penin¬ 
sula. France holds Tonkin, Anam, Laos, Cam¬ 
bodia, and Cochin-China. All these possessions have been 
acquired at the expense of China, which formerly exercised a 
vague sovereignty over southeastern Asia. 

Siam occupies a position comparable to that of Persia. By 
an agreement between Great Britain and France in 1896, the 
country was divided into three zones: the eastern 
to be the French sphere of influence; the western 
the British; and the central, the basin of the Menam River, to 
be neutral. It will be thus seen that a belt of protected or neutral 
states — Afghanistan, Persia, Tibet, and Siam — separates the 
possessions of Russia and France in Asia from those of Great 
Britain and forms the real frontier of India. 


Great Britain 
and France in 
southeastern 
Asia 


Siam 


156. India 

British expansion in India, begun by Clive during the 
Seven Years’ War, has proceeded scarcely \yithout interruption 
Conquest to the present day. The conquest of India was 
of India almost inevitable. Sometimes the Indian princes 
attacked the British settlements and had to be overcome; 
sometimes the lawless condition of their dominions led to inter- 


India 


55 1 


vention; sometimes, again, the need of finding defensible 
frontiers resulted in annexations. The entire peninsula, cover¬ 
ing an area half as large as the United States, is now under the 
Union Jack. 



The East India Company continued to govern India until 
after the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1857 came the 
Sepoy Mutiny, a sudden uprising of the native Government 
soldiers in the northern part of the country. 1 ofIndia 
Bloodily conducted, it was as bloodily suppressed, some of the 
ringleaders even being blown to pieces from the mouths of 
cannon. The mutiny disclosed the weakness of company rule 

1 Read Tennyson’s poem, The Defense of Lucknow, and the novel, On the Face of 
the Waters, by Mrs. F. A. Steel. 










































































552 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

and led in 1858 to the transfer of all governmental functions to 
the Crown. Queen Victoria assumed the title, Empress of 
India, in 1877. A viceroy, whose seat is the old Mogul capital 
Delhi, and the officials of the Indian Civil Service administer 
the affairs of about two-thirds of the country. The remainder is 
ruled by native princes under British control. Their contri- 



“ The Lion’s Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger ” 

A cartoon by Sir John Tenniel which appeared in the English journal Punch for 
August 22, 1857. 


butions of both men and money during the World War showed 
their loyalty to Great Britain. 

The fact that a handful of foreigners has been able to subdue 
and keep in subjection more than three hundred million Indian 
Peoples of peoples is sufficiently explained by their disunion. 
India The census report of 1901 divides the population 

of India into seven distinct racial types, speaking upwards of 
fifty distinct languages. The Aryan Hindus dwell in the river 
valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Southern India belongs 
chiefly to the primitive Dravidians, who speak non-Aryan 
tongues and probably represent the aboriginal inhabitants of 
the peninsula. The slopes of the Himalayas are occupied by the 
descendents of Turkish (Mogul) and other invaders. On the 
northeast, reaching down into Burma, are Mongolian peoples 
allied to the Chinese. All these elements, however, have become 




India 


553 



inextricably mingled, and their representatives are found in 
every province and native state. 

Religion likewise acts as a divisive force. The Hindus accept 
Brahmanism, a name derived from Brahma, the Supreme 
Being or First Cause. In its original form, three Religions of 
thousand years ago, Brahmanism appears to have India 
been an elevated faith, but it has now so far declined that 
its adherents generally worship a multitude of gods, venerate 
idols, revere the cow as a sacred animal, and indulge in many 
debasing rites. The Dravidians are only nominal Brahmanists; 
their real worship is that of countless village deities. Islam 
prevails especially in the northern fringe of provinces, but 
Moslem missionaries have penetrated almost every part of the 
country. Buddhism, which arose in India during the fifth 




















































554 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

century b.c., is now practically extinct there, though Ceylon 
and Burma are strongholds of this ancient faith. 1 

Nor are the Hindus themselves united. The all-pervading 
caste system splits them up into several thousand distinct 
The caste groups, headed by the Brahmans or priests, 

system Members of a given caste may not marry outside 

it; may not eat with any one who does not belong to it; and 
may not do work of any sort unrecognized by it. Caste, in fact, 
regulates a man’s actions from the cradle to the grave. It has 
lasted in India for ages. 

The spread of European civilization in India promises to 
remove, or at least to lower, the barriers of race, religion, and 
Indian caste. Great Britain enforces peace throughout 

nationalism the peninsula, builds railways and canals linking 

every part of it together, stamps out the famines and plagues 
which used to decimate the inhabitants, and has begun their 
education in schools of many grades. All this work tends to 
foster a sense of nationality, something hitherto lacking in 
India. Educated Hindus, familiar with the national and 
democratic movements of the past century in Europe, now 
demand self-government for their own country. This may come 
in time, but a united Indian nation must necessarily be of slow 
development. 

While Great Britain will doubtless go further than she has yet 
gone in the direction of home rule for India, there is little rea- 
indian son to believe that she will ever voluntarily con- 

mdependence cec [ e Indian independence. For British political 
supremacy in India insures British economic supremacy through¬ 
out that vast peninsula. Great Britain looks to India as one 
of the foremost sources of her food supply, finds in India a 
market for enormous quantities of cotton and iron manufac¬ 
tures, and possesses almost a monopoly of India’s sea-borne 
trade. The capitalists of Great Britain have also invested 
heavily in Indian railways, factories, and mines, as well as in the 
securities of the Indian government. India is a rich jewel, 
indeed, in the British imperial crown. 

1 See the map on page 668 




i 





.6 






















































































NORTH 





















































China 


555 


157 . China 

Between Russian Asia and British and French Asia lies 

China, with a larger area than Europe and probably quite as 

populous. China proper consists of eighteen 

i c m ii - , China proper 

provinces in the fertile valleys of the Yangtse 
and the Hoangho, or Yellow River. The great length of the 
country accounts for the variety of its productions, which 
range from hardy grains in the north to camphor and mulberry 
trees, tea, and cotton in the south. The mineral wealth includes 
deposits of copper, tin, lead, and iron, much oil, and coal fields 
said to be the most extensive in the world. 

The traditions of the Chinese throw no light on their origin. 
They may have come from the west in prehistoric times, but 
more probably developed out of the Mongolian Thg Chinese 
stock inhabiting China proper. In the course of 
centuries they have pushed into Manchuria, Mongolia, Chinese 
Turkestan (Sinkiang), and Tibet. Chinese farmers, laborers, and 
traders are also numerous in Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, 
and the Malay Islands. The enterprising spirit of the people 
is further shown by their recent emigration in large numbers 
to the United States and other distant lands. 

The Chinese boast a civilization already old when Rome was 
young. They are famous for artistic work in wood and metal, 
the manufacture of silk, and the production of Chinese 
porcelain or chinaware. Rudimentary forms of civilization 
such inventions as the compass, gunpowder, paper, and movable 
type were early known to them. Though hampered by a 
cumbrous, nonalphabetic system of writing, the Chinese have 
managed to produce an extensive literature. One of their 
encyclopedias fills over five thousand volumes. 

The government of China, until recently, had always been 
a monarchy. The emperor, in theory absolute, was really 
under the thumb of the office-holding or mandarin society and 
class, which took the place of a hereditary nobility, religion in 
Any one, high or low, could enter its ranks by Chma 
passing a rigid examination in the sacred books. These were 


556 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

in part collected and edited by Confucius (551-478 B.C.), the 
reformer who did so much to make reverence for ancestors and 
imitation of their ways the Chinaman’s cardinal virtues. Con¬ 
fucianism is a code of morals rather than a religion. It has 
not supplanted among uneducated people a lively belief in 
many spirits, good and bad. Buddhism has spread so widely 
over China and the adjoining countries that to-day it forms 
the creed of about one-third of mankind. Christianity and 
Islam are also making some headway in China. 

The rugged mountains and trackless deserts which bound 
three sides of China long shut it off from much intercourse 
isolation of with the western world. The proud disposition 
Chma 0 f p s people, to whom foreigners were only bar¬ 

barians (“foreign devils ”), likewise tended to keep them 
isolated. Before the nineteenth century the only Europeans 
who gained an entrance into the “ Celestial Empire ” were a few 
missionaries and traders. The merchants of Portugal estab¬ 
lished themselves at Macao, and those of Holland and Great 
Britain at Canton. There was also some traffic overland 
between Russia and China. Foreign trade, however, had no 
attraction for the Chinese, who discouraged it as far as possible. 

The difficulties experienced by merchants in China led at 
length to hostilities between that country and Great Britain. 
Foreign The British, with their modern fleet and army, 

aggression had an easy victory and in 1842 compelled the 
Chinese government to open additional ports and cede the 
island of Hongkong. Other nations now hastened to secure 
commercial concessions in China. Many more ports were 
opened to foreign merchants, Europeans were granted the 
right to travel in China, and Christian missionaries were to be 
protected in their work among the inhabitants. But all this 
made little impression upon perhaps the most conservative 
people in the world. The Chinese remained absolutely hostile 
to the western civilization so rudely thrust upon them. 

Foreign aggression soon took the form of annexations in 
outlying portions of Chinese territory. We have seen how 
Great Britain appropriated Burma; France, Indo-China; and 



It 

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China 


557 



Intervention 


Russia, the Amur district. Meanwhile, Japan, just beginning 
her national expansion, looked enviously across the sea to 
Korea, a tributary kingdom of China. The Chino- . 

. Annexations 

Japanese War (1894-1895) followed. Completely 
defeated, the Chinese had not only to renounce all claim to 
Korea, but also to surrender to Japan the island of Formosa 
and the Liaotung Penin¬ 
sula (with Port Arthur) in 
Manchuria. 

Japan’s gains aroused the 
jealousy of Russia, who 
saw the road 
to an ice-free 
harbor on the Pacific 
blocked by the Japanese 
occupation of the Liaotung 
Peninsula. Russia took 
her .grievance to France 
and Germany, and to¬ 
gether the three powers 
induced the Japanese to 
give up their acquisitions 
on the mainland. The 
coalition then seized sev¬ 
eral Chinese harbors 1 and 


Empress-Dowager of China 

A portrait by a Chinese artist. The empress 
is represented as a goddess of mercy. She 
stands upon a lotus petal floating on the waves 
of the sea. 


divided much of the coun¬ 
try into spheres of influence. 

The partition of China 
seemed at hand. 

But Europe was not to 
have its own way in China. A secret society called the 
“Boxers,” whose members claimed to be in- The “Boxers,” 
vulnerable, spread rapidly through the provinces 1900 
and urged war to the death against the “foreign devils.” 
Encouraged by the empress-dowager, Tze-hsi, who was 


1 Russia took Port Arthur, Germany, Kiauchau, and France, Kwangchauwan. 
Great Britain also acquired Weihaiwei. 




558 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 



regent of China for nearly forty years, the “Boxers ” 
murdered many traders and missionaries. The foreigners 
in Peking took refuge within the legations, where after a des¬ 
perate defense they were finally relieved by an international 
army composed of European, Japanese, and American troops. 
The allies then made peace with China and promised henceforth 
to respect her territory. They insisted, however, on the pay¬ 
ment of a large indem¬ 
nity for the outrages 
committed during the 
anti-foreign outbreak. 

Events now moved 
rapidly. Educated 

The Chinese Chinese, 
Revolution, many of 
1912 whom 

had studied abroad, 
saw clearly that their 
country must adopt 
western ideas and 
methods, if it was to 
remain a great power. 
The demand for 
thorough reforms in 
the government soon 
became a revolution¬ 
ary propaganda, di¬ 
rected against the un¬ 
progressive Manchu 
(or Manchurian) 
dynasty, which had ruled China for nearly three hundred 
years. The youthful emperor finally abdicated, and the oldest 
empire in the world became a republic. 

This sudden awakening of China from her sleep of centuries 
China and is a prodigious event in world history. Already 
the Occident china possesses many thousands of miles of 
railroads and telegraph lines, besides numerous factories, mills. 


Li Hung Chang 

Li Hung Chang was the most enlightened Chinese 
statesman of the nineteenth century. He arranged 
terms of peace with Japan in 1895 and with the 
European powers after the relief of the legations in 
1900. 







559 


Japan 

and mines equipped with machinery. She has begun the cre¬ 
ation of a modern army. She has abolished long-established 
customs, such as the torture of criminals and the foot-binding 
of women. She has prohibited the consumption of opium, 
a vice which sapped the vitality of her people. Her temples 
have been turned into schools teaching the sciences and foreign 
languages, and her students have been sent in large numbers to 
foreign universities. Such reforms are rapidly bringing China 
into the fellowship of Occidental nations. 

158 . Japan 

Nippon (“Rising Sun”) is the name which the inhabitants 
give to the six large islands and about four thousand smaller 
ones stretching crescent-like off the coast of eastern The Japanese 
Asia. Because of its generally mountainous char- Ar chipeiago 
acter, little more than one-eighth of the archipelago can be 
cultivated. Rice and tea form the principal crops, but fruit 
trees of every kind known to temperate climates flourish, and 
flowers bloom luxuriantly. The deep inlets of the coast pro¬ 
vide convenient harbors, and the numerous rivers, though 
neither large nor long, supply an abundance of water. Below 
the surface lie considerable deposits of coal and metals. 

The Japanese are descended mainly from Koreans and 
Chinese, who displaced the original inhabitants of the archi¬ 
pelago. 1 The immigrants appear to have reached The Japanese 
Japan in the early centuries of the Christian era. P e °P le 
Except for their shorter stature, the Japanese closely resemble 
the Chinese in physique and personal appearance. They are, 
however, more quick-witted and receptive to new ideas than 
their neighbors on the mainland. Other qualities possessed by 
the Japanese in a marked degree include obedience, the result 
of many centuries of autocratic government; a martial spirit; 
and an intense patriotism. “Thou shalt honor the gods and 
love thy country ” is the first commandment of the national 
faith. 

1 Now probably represented by the “hairy Ainu” of the island of Yezo. 


560 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


The Japanese naturally patterned their civilization upon 
that of China. They adopted a simplified form of Chinese 
Japanese writing and took over the literature, learning, 
civilization and art of the “Celestial Empire.” The moral 
system of Confucius found ready acceptance in Japan, where 
it strengthened the reverence for parents and the worship of 
ancestors. Buddhism, introduced from China by way of 
Korea, brought new ideas of the nature of the soul, of heaven 
and hell, and of salvation by prayer. It is still the prevailing 
religion in Japan. Like the Chinese, also, the Japanese had an 
emperor (the mikado). He became in time only a puppet 
emperor, and another official (the shogun) usurped the chief 
functions,of government. Neither ruler exerted much author¬ 
ity over the nobles (daimios), who oppressed their serfs and 
waged private warfare against one another very much 
as did their contemporaries, the feudal lords of medieval 
Europe. 

The first European visitors to Japan were Portuguese mer¬ 
chants and Jesuit missionaries, who came in the sixteenth 
European century. The Japanese government welcomed 
them at first, but the growing unpopularity of 
the foreigners before long resulted in their expul¬ 
sion from the country. Japan continued to lead a hermit life 
until the middle of the nineteenth century. Foreign inter¬ 
course began in 1853-1854, with the arrival of an American 
fleet under Commodore M. C. Perry. He induced the shogun to 
sign a treaty which opened two Japanese ports to American 
ships. The diplomatic ice being thus broken, various European 
nations soon negotiated commercial treaties with Japan. 

Thoughtful Japanese, however great their dislike of foreign¬ 
ers, could not fail to recognize the superiority of the Western 
The Japanese nations in the arts of war and peace. A group 
Revolution 0 f re f orm ers, including many prominent daimios, 
now carried through an almost bloodless revolution. As the 
first step, they compelled the shogun to resign his office, thus 
making the mikado 1 the actual as well as titular sovereign 

1 The youthful Mutsuhito, who reigned 1867-1912. 


intercourse 
with Japan 


Japan 561 

(1867). Most of the daimios then voluntarily surrendered their 
feudal privileges (-1871). This patriotic act made possible the 
abolition of serfdom and the formation of a national army on the 
basis of compulsory military service. In 1889 Japan secured 
a written constitution, with a parliament of two houses and a 
cabinet responsible to the mikado. He is guided in all important 
matters by a group of nobles, called the “Elder Statesmen,” 
who form the real power 
behind the throne. 

The revolutionary 
movement affected almost 
every aspect Europeaniza- 
of Japanese tion of Japan 

society. Codes of civil, 
commercial, and criminal 
law were drawn up to ac¬ 
cord with those of west¬ 
ern Europe. Universities 
and public schools were 
established upon Occiden¬ 
tal models. Railroads and 
steamship lines were mul¬ 
tiplied. The abundant 
water power, and cheap 
labor of Japan facilitated 

the introduction of Euro- _ 

. , . Sign Manual and Seal oe Mutsuhito 

pean methods ot manu¬ 
facturing ; and machine-made goods began to displace the artistic 
productions of handworkers. Japan thus became a modern 
industrial nation and a competitor of Europe for Asiatic trade. 

Once in possession of European arts, sciences, and industries, 
Japan entered upon a career of territorial expansion in eastern 
Asia. Her merchants and capitalists wanted Expansion of 
opportunities for money-making abroad; above J a P an 
all, her rapidly increasing population required new regions 
suitable for colonization beyond the narrow limits of the archi¬ 
pelago. As we have learned, the Chino-Japanese War (1894- 




































562 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

1895) brought Korea 1 under Japanese influence and added 
Formosa to the empire. Just ten years later-Japan and Russia 
clashed over the disposition of Manchuria and the Liaotung 
Peninsula. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) seemed a 
conflict between a giant and a pygmy, but the inequality of 
the Japanese in numbers and resources was more than made up 
by their preparedness for the conflict, by their irresistible 
bravery, and by the strategic genius which their generals 

displayed. After 
much bloody 
fighting by land 
and sea, both 
sides accepted 
the suggestion of 
President Roose¬ 
velt to arrange 
terms of peace. 
The treaty, as 
signed at Ports¬ 
mouth, New 
Hampshire, rec¬ 
ognized the 
claims of Japan 
in Korea, gave to 
Japan a lease of 
the Liaotung Peninsula, including Port Arthur, and provided 
for the evacuation of Manchuria by both contestants. Russia 
also ceded to Japan the southern half of the island of Sakhalin. 
No indemnity was paid by either country. 

Even before the Russo-Japanese War Japan had become a 
world power. Great Britain first recognized this fact and 
Japan as a hastened to conclude an offensive and defensive 
world power a iij ance with the “Island Empire.” Each con¬ 
tracting party pledged itself to come to the other’s assistance, 

1 Known as ChQsen since its formal annexation by Japan in 1910. Though now 
Japanese subjects, the Koreans continue to agitate for the restoration of their 
ancient kingdom. 








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The Opening-up and Partition of Oceania 563 

in case the possessions of either in eastern Asia and India were 
attacked by another state. Both France and Russia also 
entered into a friendly understanding with Japan for the preser¬ 
vation of peace in the Far East. How loyally Japan observed 
these agreements was soon shown upon the outbreak of the 
World War. 


159. The Opening-up and Partition of Oceania 

The term Oceania, or Oceanica, in its widest sense applies 
to all the Pacific Islands. The continental group includes, in 
addition to the Japanese Archipelago and Formosa, Qceania 
the Philippines, the Malay Archipelago, Australia, 
and Tasmania. Many of these islands appear to have been 
connected at a remote period, and still more remotely to have 
been joined to the Asiatic mainland. The oceanic group in¬ 
cludes, besides New Zealand, a vast number of islands and 
islets either volcanic or coralline in formation. They fall into 
the three divisions named Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. 

The natives of Oceania exhibit a wide variety of culture, 
ranging from the savage aborigines of Australia to the semi- 
civilized Filipinos, Malays, and Polynesians. The Oceanic 
first emigrants to the continental islands doubt- P e °P les 
less came from Asia and walked dryshod from one archipelago 
to another. On the other hand, the oceanic islands could only 
have been reached by water. Their inhabitants, at the time 
of European discovery, were remarkable navigators, who sailed 
up and down the Pacific and even ventured into the icy Antarc¬ 
tic. No evidence exists, however, that they even once sighted 
the coast of America. 

Magellan discovered the Philippines on his voyage of cir¬ 
cumnavigation in 1521, and for the next three hundred and 
fifty years they belonged to Spain. The conquest Spain in the 
of the islands was essentially a peaceful mission- Philippines 
ary enterprise. Spanish friars accomplished a remarkable work 
in carrying Christianity to the natives. These converted Fili¬ 
pinos are the only large mass of Asiatics who have adopted the 


564 Expansion of Europe in the Qld World 

Christian religion in modern times. The missionary era drew 
to an end in the nineteenth century, especially after the open¬ 
ing of the Suez Canal and the establishment of direct steamer 
communication between the Philippines and Spain. Many edu¬ 
cated Filipinos took advantage of the increased facilities for 
travel to visit Europe, thus coming into contact with the pro¬ 
gressive peoples of the West. They came back to their country 
full of enthusiasm for “ westernizing ” it, only to meet the 
opposition both of the friars and of the grasping and corrupt 
Spanish officials. The result was much - discontent, which 
found expression in secret conspiracies and armed revolts 
against the government. 

Admiral Dewey’s victory in the battle of Manila Bay not 
only destroyed the Spanish fleet, but also gave the death-blow 
American to P res dge of Spain throughout the Philippines, 
conquest Insurrections started immediately in nearly every 
Philippines province. The Filipinos under Aguinaldo at first 

cooperated with the Americans in campaigning 
against the Spaniards, but after the cession of the islands to 
the United States in 1898, hostilities broke out between the 
former companions-in-arms. It required over two years of 
continuous fighting to break down the native resistance and to 
capture Aguinaldo. 

The American people at once adopted a very liberal policy 

toward their eight million Filipino subjects. Under the direc- 

__ . , tion of Judge W. H. Taft, the first governor- 

States in general, an amnesty was extended to all rebels 

the Philip- who would take the oath of allegiance to the 
pines 

United States. A constabulary or police force, 
made up of native soldiers and officered by white men, was 
organized to maintain order. The agricultural lands belonging 
to the friars were purchased for the benefit of the people. Hun¬ 
dreds of American school teachers were introduced to train 
Filipino teachers in English and modern methods of instruction. 
Large appropriations were made for roads, harbors, and other 
improvements. True to democratic traditions, the United 
States also set up a Filipino legislature, which at the present 










































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'(0ES|.. 

Pr 0 •• lr : 

UrS^-tM. 


/RODRIGUEZ l.(^K) 
^MAtlRITIUstSy-) j 
REUNION (F/:) 7 


RICA 


J bech, 

PROtV" 


gasman 



Belgian 

Portuguese 

Spanish 




United 

States 


_J 

Chinese 


Russian 









































The Opening-up and Partition of Oceania 565 

time is entirely elected by the natives. But home rule does 
not satisfy them; they want complete independence. The 
separation movement has gained ground rapidly since the 
World War, which stirred the nationalist longings of the Fili¬ 
pinos as of the Koreans, Hindus, and Egyptians. American 
public opinion seems to favor withdrawal from the islands, as 
soon as the inhabitants have clearly shown themselves capable 
of maintaining a stable government. 

The Malay Archipelago, 1 in which the Philippines are often 
included, forms the largest group of islands in the world. The 
equator passes through the middle of the archi- The Malay 
pelago, giving it a tropical climate. The majority Archipelago 
of the inhabitants are Malays, a branch of the Yellow race. 
Ruder, more primitive peoples occupy the interior of Sumatra, 
Borneo, and New Guinea. Hindus, Mohammedan Arabs, and 
Chinese have been the principal immigrants into the islands 
within historic times. 

The possessions which Portugal acquired in the Malay Archi¬ 
pelago were seized by Holland in the seventeenth century. 

All the islands, except British North Borneo, the „ „ , 

, Holland 

Portuguese part of Timor, and the eastern half of i n the 

New Guinea, belong to the Dutch. They were ^^p elag0 
transferred in 1798 from the Dutch East India 
Company to the royal government. Their total population is 
estimated at about 40,000,000; of these less than 100,000 are 
whites. The Dutch have met the usual difficulties of Euro¬ 
peans ruling subject peoples, but their authority seems to be 
now thoroughly established throughout the archipelago. The 
government is fairly enlightened, and much progress has been 
made (particularly in Java) in educating the natives and in 
raising their economic condition. Although Holland freely 
opens her possessions to traders of other nations, Dutch mer¬ 
chants continue to control the lucrative commerce of the islands. 

Geographical knowledge of the Pacific islands dates from 
Captain Cook’s discoveries in the eighteenth century, but their 
partition among European powers has been completed only in 

1 Also called Malaysia, Indonesia, the East Indies. See the map on page 229. 


566 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

the twentieth century. Great Britain has raised the Union 
Jack over the Solomons, the Fiji Islands, and many smaller 
M 1 s'a archipelagoes. France possesses New Caledonia, 
Micronesia, Tahiti, and the Marquesas group. The United 
States controls Guam, part of Samoa, and Hawaii. 
The German possessions in the Pacific were 
surrendered to the Allies shortly after the opening of the 
World War. 


and 

Polynesia 


Australasia 


160. Australia and New Zealand 

The term Australasia, in a restricted sense, applies to that 
division of Oceania comprising Australia, Tasmania, and New 
Zealand. Australia deserves its rank as a sepa¬ 
rate continent. In area it equals three-fourths of 
Europe, one-third of North America, and one-fourth of the 
British Empire. The characteristic features of Australian 
geography are the slightly indented coast, the lack of navigable 
rivers communicating with the interior, the central desert, 
the absence of active volcanoes or snow-capped mountains, the 
generally level surface, and the low altitude. Australia is the 
most isolated of all inhabited continents, while the two large 
islands of New Zealand, twelve hundred miles to the southeast, 
are still more remote from the center of the world’s activities. 

Much of Australia lies in the temperate zone and therefore 
offers a favorable field for white settlement. Captain Cook, 
on the first of his celebrated voyages, raised the 
British flag over the island continent. Coloni¬ 
zation began in 1787, with the foundation of Sydney on the 
coast of New South Wales. For many years Australia served 
as a penal station, to which the British transported the con¬ 
victs who had been previously sent to America. More sub¬ 
stantial colonists followed, especially after the introduction of 
sheep-farming and the discovery of gold in the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury. They settled chiefly on the eastern and southern coasts, 
where the climate is cool and there is plenty of water and rich 
pasture land. 


Australia 



THE PACIFIC OCEAN 

BRITISH 
FRENCH 
DUTCH 


PORTUGUESE 

JAPANESE 

AMERICAN 
















































* 








7 ' f , 

■ 




' 'j 


































• 












Australia and New Zealand 


5^7 

New South Wales, the original colony, had two daughter 
colonies, Victoria and Queensland. Two other colonies — 
South Australia and Western Australia — were The Austra _ 
founded directly by emigrants from Great Britain, lian Common- 
All these states, together with Tasmania, have wealth » 1900 
now united into the Australian Commonwealth. This feder¬ 
ation follows American models in its written constitution, its 
senate and house of representatives, and its high (or supreme) 



cqurt. A governor-general, sent from England, represents the 
British Crown. The Commonwealth, however, is entirely self- 
governing except in foreign affairs. 

Great Britain annexed New Zealand in 1839. Its temperate 
climate, abundant rainfall, and luxuriant vegetation soon at¬ 
tracted settlers, who now number more than a The 

million In 1007 New Zealand was raised from Dominion of 
, .... New Zealand 

the rank of a colony to that of a dominion, thus 

taking a place beside Canada, South Africa, and Australia 

among the self-governing divisions of the British Empire. 









568 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 


161 . Inter-racial Problems 


The number of people on the earth is estimated to ex¬ 
ceed 1,600,000,000. Asia has perhaps 900,000,000; Europe, 
Population of 400,000,000; America, 150,000,000; Africa, 140,- 
the world 000,000; and Oceania, 10,000,000. These figures 
are only approximate, since many countries either do not 
take a census or take it quite inaccurately. 

The world’s inhabitants are distributed in three great races, 
each of which occupies, roughly speaking, distinct geographical 
Geographical areas - The Yellow or Mongolian race holds the 
distribution north, east, and center of Asia. The so-called 
Brown race (Malays, Polynesians) and the so- 
called Red race (American Indians) must be considered branches 
of the Yellow race. The Black or Negro race holds most of 
Africa south of the Sahara. The Dravidians of India, the 
aborigines of Australia, and the Papuans of New Guinea and 
the adjacent islands, are negroid (negro-like) peoples. The 
White or Caucasian race is found in Europe, northern and 
eastern Africa, and southwestern Asia. It also forms the bulk 
of the population of the New World, as well as of South Africa, 
Australia, and New Zealand. 

The wonderful expansion of the White race during the last 
four centuries has been largely confined to the temperate 
Expansion regions of the globe. The few whites settling in 
of the tropical and sub-tropical parts of Africa, Asia, 

White race Oceania, and America go as soldiers, officials, clerks, 
salesmen, and agents sent out for a term of years. They seek, 
not new homes, but the profits of trade or rule over subject 
peoples. Such are the seventy-five thousand Englishmen in 
India and the still fewer Dutch who control the East India 
dependencies of Holland. Now, however, that so little free 
or cheap agricultural land remains in the temperate zone, the 
white man who wants to establish himself in a new country is 
looking more and more to the tropics. Here he finds an abund¬ 
ance of rich land that has never been tilled, virgin forests that 
await the woodsman’s ax, and mineral wealth yet to be 


Inter-racial Problems 


S69 



















































































































































































































































































































































































































































570 Expansion of Europe in the Old World 

exploited. Europeans and Americans have not gone to the 
tropics in large numbers, principally because they feared the 
climate and the tropical diseases. Our experience in Panama 
and that of the British in India seems to prove that yellow 
fever, malaria, and other plagues can be conquered by scientific 
sanitation and medicine. Even so, it is still not certain that 
the white man, and especially the white man’s wife and chil¬ 
dren, can long thrive in the hot, moist climate of equatorial 
countries. Englishmen stationed in the hottest parts of India 
find it necessary to take frequent long vacations in more 
northerly climes, and their children, unless sent back to Eng¬ 
land at an early age, languish, often die, and still more often 
grow up as nervous wrecks. There are, of course, tropical 
lands (Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, part of Uganda) which, by 
reason of their great elevation, reach literally out of the tropics, 
and other tropical lands (Hawaii) so tempered by sea breezes 
that their climate is not really tropical at all. In such regions 
the white man may adjust himself to a tropical environment, 
not only without injury, but often with positive benefit to his 
health. 

The Black and Yellow races have not remained within their 
continents of origin during the past four hundred years. The 
„ . forced migration of Africans practically ended 

Expansion 

of the with the abolition of negro slavery and the slave 

YeU^w^races trac ^ e * n nineteenth century, but the voluntary 
migration of Asiatics shows a marked tendency to 
increase. The overflow of the teeming populations of India, 
Indo-China, China, and Japan on to the Philippines, the Malay 
Archipelago, Australia, the islands of the Pacific, South Africa, 
and the North and South American coasts seems destined 
to raise race questions of tremendous import in the 
future. 

The growing contact of Europeans and non-Europeans 
throughout the Old World will make it necessary for them to 
Cooperation associate more and more in the common work of 
of the races civilization. Cooperation between the races can 
only be secured in proportion as each race learns to appreciate 


Inter-racial Problems 


57i 

the others. Racial prejudices must give way to a decent re¬ 
gard for the value of human beings everywhere. 

Studies 

1. “Europe to-day is no more than a portion of the European world.” Com¬ 
ment on this statement. 2. What parts of the Old World are occupied or colonized 
by Anglo-Saxon peoples? By Latin peoples? By Slavic peoples? 3. What is the 
origin of the names Liberia, Rhodesia, Philippines, Tasmania, and New Zealand? 
4. Distinguish between the Near East and the Far East, as these expressions are 
commonly used. 5. Trace the routes followed by the Cape-to-Cairo and Trans- 
Siberian railways. 6. Account for the long delay in the partition of Africa. 7. Show 
how Africa has become an “annex of Europe.” 8. What European powers have 
secured the former Turkish possessions in North Africa? 9. Look up in an ency¬ 
clopedia accounts of the negro republic of Liberia and of the “empire” of Abyssinia. 

10. Why has the Suez Canal been called the “spinal cord ” of the British Empire? 

11. What possessions in India are still kept by Portugal and France? 12. Look up 
in an encyclopedia an account of the life and teachings of the Buddha. 13. Do the 
Chinese form a genuine nation? How is it with the Japanese? 14. Show that the 
Chino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars contributed to the awakening of China. 
15. Compare the Europeanization of Japan in the nineteenth century with that 
of Russia in the eighteenth century. 16. Why are the Hawaiian Islands called the 
“crossroads of the Pacific”? 17. Discuss the question of tropical acclimatization. 



Buddhist Prayer Wheel 

A small hand wheel from Burma; now in the 
United States National Museum, Washington. 
It consists of a metal cylinder, through which 
passes a wooden handle. Inside the cylinder is 
rolled a long strip of paper inscribed with the 
sacred Buddhist formula: Om mani padme hum 
(“O jewel in the lotus flower”). Each revolu¬ 
tion of the cylinder counts as an uttered prayer. 





CHAPTER XXII 


EXPANSION OF EUROPE IN THE NEW WORLD 1 


and 

America 


162. South America 

European expansion in America differs markedly from 
European expansion in Africa and Asia. Africa has been 
Europe subjected and partitioned by Europe, but its 

savage and barbarous peoples have not been 
Europeanized either in blood, language, or in¬ 
stitutions. Asia has accepted certain features of Occidental 
civilization, but nothing indicates that Hindus, Chinese, Jap¬ 
anese, and other Orientals will allow their ancient civilization 
to be extinguished by that of Europe. America, however, is 
largely European in blood and completely European in language, 
laws, customs, and political and social life. Between the New 
World of 1492 and the New World of 1920 how great the 
contrast! 

Eighteen independent countries in the New World have 
developed from Spanish colonies. Brazil has sprung from 
Latin Portuguese settlement, and Haiti from French 

America settlement. All these countries inherited Latin 
or Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, and French) 
and embraced the faith of the Roman Catholic Church. They 
constitute the Latin America of the present day. 

The motives which led to Spanish colonization in America 
may be summed up in the three words “ gospel, glory, and 
gold.” Missionaries sought converts in Spanish America; 
warriors sought conquests; and adventurers sought wealth. 

1 Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 19, “Washington’s Farewell Address; 
1796”; No. 21, “Monroe Doctrine, 1823”; No. 23, 11 Durham Report, 1839,” 
No.. 26, “Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861”; No. 27, “Gettysburg Ad¬ 
dress, 1863”; No. 30, “Roosevelt’s Inaugural Address, 1905.” 

572 


South America 


573 

Together, they created for Spain an empire greater in extent 
than any that the world had ever known before. After the 
middle of the sixteenth century homeseekers also The 
came to the colonies, but never in such numbers Spanish 
as to crowd out the Indian aborigines. Inter- coloiues 
mixture between the races soon became common, resulting in 
the half-breeds called “ mestizos.” Although the white ele¬ 
ment remained dominant in public affairs, the racial founda¬ 
tion of most of Spanish America was and continues to be 
Indian. The fact is important, for the large proportion of im¬ 
perfectly civilized Indians and half-breeds, together with the 
negroes who were soon introduced as slaves, operated to re¬ 
tard the progress of the Spanish colonies. 

Spain governed her colonies in the New World for her own 
benefit. She crippled their trade by requiring the inhabitants 
to buy only Spanish goods and to sell only to The 
Spaniards. She prohibited such colonial manu- yoke 
factures as might compete with those at home. of Spam 
Furthermore, she filled all the offices in Church and State with 
Spaniards born in the mother country, to the exclusion of 
those born in the colonies, the creoles. This restrictive system 
made the colonists long for freedom, especially after they heard 
the stirring story of the revolutions which had created the 
United States and republican France. When Napoleon in¬ 
vaded Spain, forced the abdication of Ferdinand VII, and 
gave the crown to his own brother Joseph, 1 the colonists set 
up practically independent states throughout Spanish America. 
For six years — 1808-1814 — they enjoyed liberty. 

Ferdinand VII, who returned to his throne after Napoleon’s 
overthrow, was a genuine Bourbon, incapable of learning 
anything or of forgetting anything. 2 His refusal Revolt 
to satisfy the demands of the colonists for equal against Spam 
rights with the mother country precipitated the revolt against 
Spain. Its greatest hero is Simon de Bolivar, who, in addition 
to freeing his native Venezuela, helped to free the countries 


1 See page 342. 


2 See page 354. 


574 Expansion of Europe in the New World 



now known as Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. One 
by one all the colonies in South America, together with Central 
America and Mexico, threw off the Spanish yoke. The United 

States followed the 
movement with sym¬ 
pathetic eyes, and as 
early as 1817 sent 
commissioners to 
establish commercial 
relations with the re¬ 
volting colonies. 
Great Britain also 
took an interest in 
their struggle for 
liberty and helped 
them with money, 
ships, and munitions 
of war. In 1826 the 
Sp anish flag was 
finally lowered on the 
American continents. 

The people of Brazil also severed the ties uniting them to 
the mother country. They set up an independent empire in 
Revolt 1822, with Dom Pedro, the oldest son of the 

against Portuguese king, as its first ruler. He abdicated 

Portugal n * ne y ears j ater f avor 0 f hfg infant son. Brazil 
prospered under the benevolent sway of the second Dom Pedro, 
who was the last monarch to occupy an American throne. A 
peaceful revolution in 1889 overthrew the imperial govern¬ 
ment and transformed Brazil into a republic. 

The revolts from Spain and Portugal produced seven in¬ 
dependent states in South America. These were subsequently 
The South increased to ten by the secession of Uruguay 
American from Brazil (1828) and the break-up of the Great 
republics Colombia, established by Bolivar, into the three 
states of Venezuela (1829), Ecuador (1830), and Colombia. 
All the South American republics possess constitutions and 


Simon Bolivar 

A medallion by David d’Angers, 1832 
















































































South America 


575 

the forms of democracy. Frequent revolutions and civil 
wars characterized their history during most of the nineteenth 
century. Nothing else 
could have been looked 
for, considering that the 
masses of semi-civilized 
Indians, half-breeds, and 
negroes lacked all poli¬ 
tical experience. They 
were easily swayed by 
ambitious politicians 
and generals, who often 
became dictators with 
well-nigh absolute power. 

But the South Americans 
have now served their 
apprenticeship to liberty. 

They are learning to 
rule themselves, and the 
several states seem to be entering upon a period of settled, 
orderly government. 

South America has almost limitless resources. It produces 
a greater variety of plants useful to man than any other quarter 
of the globe. Tropical fruits grow abundantly Natural 
in the equatorial regions, together with cotton, resources 
sugar-cane, coffee, cacao, and tobacco. Cereals of every de¬ 
scription flourish in the sub-tropical and temperate areas, 
and cattle, sheep, and horses thrive on the boundless pampas 
of Argentina. Rubber, medicinal products (cocoa, cinchona 
bark), dye-woods, and timber of extraordinary hardness and 
durability come from the forests of Brazil and adjacent countries. 
Many valuable minerals are found in the lofty Cordilleran 
range, besides asphalt in Venezuela and extensive deposits of 
nitrate of soda in Chile. 

The exploitation of this wealth in mines, forests, and soil 
must for a long time engross the energies of South American 
peoples. Their economic progress has been slow for several 



Dom Pedro II 


576 Expansion of Europe in the New World 

reasons. Owing to the scanty population, surplus labor which 
might be employed in factories is altogether lacking. There 
Economic is a similar lack of capital, for wealth takes 

conditions chiefly the form of large plantations and cattle 

ranches. Furthermore, few deposits of coal and iron, those 
essentials of modern industry, are available. Consequently, 
South America will doubtless continue, as in the past, to pro¬ 
duce mainly raw materials and to import manufactured articles. 
It offers an ever-expanding market for textiles, iron and steel 
wares, machinery, and general merchandise, and needs also 
the services of an army of engineers and business experts to 
develop its industries. 

Large sums have recently been loaned by foreign financiers 
to South American governments, and still larger sums have 
Foreign been invested in South American railways, banks, 

loans and mines, and plantations. Thus the remarkable 
investments Trans-Andean Railway, linking Buenos Aires in 
Argentina with Valparaiso and Santiago in Chile, was completed 
in 1910 only with funds supplied by New York bankers. Such 
investments may be expected to increase as political conditions 
in South America become stabilized. 

South America is very thinly settled. The population of 
about half the continent, excluding the most inaccessible re- 
Foreign gions, scarcely exceeds what it was four centuries 

immigration a go. Brazil, whose area is greater than that of 
the United States (exclusive of Alaska), would contain more 
than all the world’s inhabitants, were it as populous as Bel¬ 
gium. Foreign immigrants have neglected South America, as 
being geographically, climatically, and racially less attractive 
than North America. Immigration has increased within re¬ 
cent years, especially into Brazil and Argentina. The new¬ 
comers from Portugal, Spain, Italy, and France blend readily 
with peoples, like themselves, of Latin origin. The Germans, 
a numerous group, tend to form communities where they 
speak their own language and keep socially aloof from the 
natives. Englishmen and Americans are comparatively few 
in number. Japanese have established themselves in Brazil 


South America 


577 

and other states, and Chinese are found on the northwest 
coast of South America. 

The most prosperous, best governed, and by all odds the 
most important of South American states are Argentina, 
Brazil, and Chile. These states, it may be ob- The 
served, are precisely the ones which have received “ a-b-c ” 
the greatest amounts of foreign capital and the powers 
largest number of foreign immigrants. The three “ A-B-C ” 



The Christ oe the Andes 


Erected in 1904 to commemorate the peaceful settlement of a boundary dispute between 
Argentina and Chile. The monument stands about three thousand feet above the tunnel 
on the Trans-Andean Railroad. The figure of the Christ, twenty-six feet high, was cast 
from bronze cannon. A tablet on the pedestal reads: 

“ Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than the people of Argentina and Chile 
break the peace which they have sworn to maintain at the feet of Christ the Redeemer.” 


powers — to use their popular designation — maintain very 
friendly relations and generally cooperate in furthering the 
interests of South America abroad. Their desire to substitute 
arbitration for war was strikingly shown in 1902, when Argen¬ 
tina and Chile bound themselves by treaty to arbitrate all 
disputes which might arise between them. 


57$ Expansion of Europe in the New World 


163. Central America and Mexico 


The Spanish dependencies in Central America declared their 
independence in 1821, and two years later formed a federation. 
The Central ^ soon disintegrated into the five diminutive re- 
American publics of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, 1 Nic- 
republics aragua, and Costa Rica. Subsequent attempts to 
restore federal unity have been unsuccessful. They still main¬ 
tain a separate existence, often vexed by factional strife and 
revolutions. The recent secession of Panama from Colombia 
has added a sixth republic to their number. Its independence 
was promptly recognized by the United States and later by 
the European powers. The population of Central America is 
small, far smaller, apparently, than before the arrival of the 
Spaniards. The vast majority of the inhabitants are of mixed 
Indian and Spanish blood, the Indian element predominating 
everywhere except in Costa Rica. Some of the Indians live 
under very primitive conditions, although their ancestors, the 
Mayas, reached in pre-Columbian days the highest level of 
culture attained by any native people. No part of the New 
World holds greater interest to the archaeologist than Central 
America, with its ruins of entire cities now buried in the dense 
tropical jungle. 

Mexico also secured independence in 1821, only to enter 
upon a long period of disorder. Counting regencies, emperors, 
The presidents, triumvirates, dictators, and other 

rulers, the “ republic ” had as many administra¬ 
tions during the first half century of its existence 
as the colony had viceroys throughout the whole period of 
Spanish rule. In 1861 Benito Juarez — a full-blooded Indian 
— became president. He proceeded to confiscate all the 
property of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, to suppress 
the monasteries, and to repudiate the public debt, which was 
largely held in Europe. These proceedings gave Napoleon III 
a pretext for interfering in Mexican affairs, at a time when the 
United States was in the throes of the Civil War. The French 

1 British Honduras is a Crown colony of Great Britain. 


Mexican 

republic 


Central America and Mexico 


579 


quickly overran much of the country and set up the archduke 
Maximilian, brother of Francis Joseph I, as emperor. For a 
while he held sway over about two-thirds Mexico, while the 
Juarists, as the Mexican patriots were called, maintained them¬ 
selves by guerilla warfare in the remoter provinces. Maxi¬ 
milian’s power rested on the bayonets of his foreign soldiery. 
The United States, at this time in the throes of the Civil 
War, refused to recognize him. After the close of the war, the 
United States protested vigorously to Napoleon III against the 
presence of the French in Mexico and backed up its words 
by sending troops to the Rio Grande. Partly because of this 
action and also because of his growing fear of Prussia, Napo¬ 
leon III in 1867 withdrew his forces from Mexico. Maximilian 
remained, only to be captured by the Juarists, and after a 
hurried court-martial to be shot as a rebel against the lawful 
government. 

Ten years later Porfirio Diaz, an able lieutenant of Juarez, 

made himself supreme in Mexico. His title of president only 

veiled the real dictatorship which he exercised. It 

1 t . __ . t i Mexico 

was the policy of Diaz to repress disorder, en- un( i er 

force the law, foster industrv and railroad Diaz, 1877- 

. " . 1911 

building, encourage immigration, place the na¬ 
tional credit on a sound basis, and improve elementary and 
higher education. Mexico has never had a firmer hand at 
the helm than that of Porfirio Diaz. He gave the country 
peace and opened its wondrous resources to the rest of the 
world, but he failed to lighten the heavy burdens that were 
resting on the “peons,” as farm laborers are called in Mexico. 
Their successful revolution in 1911 compelled his withdrawal 
to Spain. 

The expulsion of Diaz was followed by civil conflict between 
rival generals and their followers. It has now died down 
in Mexico, leaving General Elias Calles as the Mexico 
recognized president. The problems before him after 
are difficult. Mexico needs not only a stable Diaz 
government, but also land reforms which will raise the “peons” 
from their condition of practical serfdom on the estates of 


580 Expansion of Europe in the New World 

great proprietors to that of free men. Whether these problems 
will be solved remains to be seen. Until they are solved, 
Mexico is bound to be a land where revolutions are recurrent 
as the seasons. 


164. The West Indies 


Geography 


Population 


The islands which Columbus discovered and named the 
West Indies form the summits of a submerged mountain chain. 

Their total area scarcely exceeds that of Great 
Britain. They are exceptionally fertile, and 
some of them are exceptionally healthy, among tropical re¬ 
gions, for white settlement. The entire archipelago is divided 
into the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, 
and Porto Rico), and the Lesser Antilles. 

The aboriginal West Indians (Caribs) soon disappeared 
almost completely, in consequence of brutal treatment by the 
Spaniards. Their place as slaves was taken by 
Africans, who were imported in great numbers 
for three hundred years. Negroes still comprise a large ma¬ 
jority of the inhabitants. The abolition of slavery and the 
slave trade in the nineteenth century led to the introduction 
of Asiatics, including many Chinese and East Indian coolies. 
English, French, Spaniards, and other Europeans early found 
their way into the islands, but very few Americans have settled 
there. 

The West Indies fill a conspicuous place in the history of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their geographical 
position between two continents made them the 
scene of sea-fights and land-fights innumerable 
between the French and British, who were then disputing the 
supremacy of the New World. The islands were equally 
prominent in the intervals of peace, for in those days they 
supplied the world with sugar. The millionaires of the eight¬ 
eenth century were the owners of West India sugar-cane 
plantations. A long period of depression followed the aboli¬ 
tion of slavery and the slave trade, which cut down the supply 
of cheap labor, while at the same time beet sugar began to be 


History 


The United States 


58i 

extensively produced in Europe. The completion of the 
Panama Canal places the West Indies on the world’s great 
trade routes and promises to restore much*of their former 
prosperity. 

The Bahamas, Jamaica, and many of the smaller West 
'Indies belong to Great Britain. Holland has five islands, in¬ 
cluding Curasao off the coast of Venezuela. France Political 
has Guadeloupe and Martinique, the latter the a® 11 ^ 10113 
birthplace of the empress Josephine. The little island of St. 
Martin is divided between Holland and France. Haiti, once 
a French possession, declared its independence at the time of 
the Revolution and successfully resisted Napoleon’s efforts 
at reconquest. The two negro republics of Haiti and Santo 
Domingo now divide the island between them. 1 Cuba, thanks 
to American intervention during the Spanish-American War, 
also forms a republic. The United States took Porto Rico 
from Spain in 1898 and in 1917 purchased from Denmark 
the three islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix. Their 
acquisition reflects the increased importance of the West Indies 
to the American people. 


165. The United States 

The expansion of the United States beyond the limits fixed 
by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 2 began with the purchase of 
the Louisiana territory between the Mississippi The 
and the Rocky Mountains. This immense region, Louisiana 
originally claimed by France in virtue of La ^£ hase » 
Salle’s discoveries, had passed to Spain at the 
close of the Seven Years’ War and had been reacquired for 
France by Napoleon Bonaparte. The French emperor, about 
to renew his conflict with Great Britain, 3 realized that he could 

1 Both Haiti and Santo Domingo came under American military occupation 
and protection in 1915-1916. The United States has indicated its intention of 
withdrawing from the two countries as soon as they return to a condition 
of domestic order. 

2 See page 269. 


3 See page 336. 


582 Expansion of Europe in the New World 


not defend Louisiana against the mistress of the seas. Rather 
than make a forced present of the country to Great Britain, 
he sold it to the United States for the paltry sum of $15,000,000. 

The possession of Louisiana gave the United States an out¬ 
let upon the Gulf of Mexico. This was greatly extended by 
Acquisitions, the purchase of Florida from Spain in 1819 and 
1803-1867 the annexation of Texas in 1845. The settlement 

of the dispute with Great Britain as to the Oregon country 
(1846), the Mexican Cession (1848), and the Gadsen Purchase 
(1853), brought the United States to the Pacific. Every part 
of this western territory is now linked by transcontinental 
railroads with the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic-facing 
states. 

Alaska had been a Russian province since Bering’s voyages 
in the eighteenth century. Russia, however, never realized 
Purchase of the value of her distant dependency and in 1867 
Alaska, 1867 so id to the United States for $ 7 , 200 , 000 . Since 
then Americans have taken from Alaska in gold alone many 
times the original cost of the territory. Its resources in coal, 
lumber, agricultural land, and fisheries are also very great, 
though as yet little has been done to exploit them. 

In the last decade of the nineteenth century the United 
States began to secure possessions overseas. The Hawaiian 
Acquisitions, Islands, lying about two thousand miles off the 
1867-1917 coast of California, were annexed in 1898. This 
action was taken at the request of the inhabitants. The same 
year saw the acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, and Porto 
Rico as the result of the war with Spain. The Samoan island 
of Tutuila and the Danish West Indies (renamed the Virgin 
Islands) have also come into American hands. 

The United States, though not unwilling to obtain colonies 
in the New World, denies the right of any European nation to 
The Monroe acquire additional territory here. This policy 

Doctrine, of “ America for Americans ” is known as the 

1823 

Monroe Doctrine. It was first formulated partly 
to stave off any attempt of the Old World monarchies, led by 
Metternich, to aid Spain in the reconquest of her colonies, and 



EQUATOR ) 



/ 


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UJ 

X 

H 

VI.-N.WORKS 


























































































The United States 


583 


partly to prevent the further extension southward of the Russian 
province of Alaska. The interests of Great Britain in both 
these directions coincided with those of the United States. 
Relying on the support of the British government, President 
Monroe sent his celebrated message to Congress (1823), in 
which he declared that the American continents were hence¬ 
forth “ not to be considered as subjects for future colonization 
by any European powers.” 1 

The solemn protest of the United States, backed by Great 
Britain, removed for a time the danger of European inter¬ 
ference in America. As we have just seen, Na- 

. __ , . . . _, . Enforcement 

poleon Ill subsequently tried to create a Mexican 0 f the 

empire for France, but this breach of the Monroe Monroe 

_ ^ P 1 Doctrine 

Doctrine was soon repaired. No further assaults ’ 

upon it have been made. The doctrine was extended by 
President Grant, who ‘n a message to Congress (1870) asserted 
the principle that hereafter no American territory “ shall be 
regarded as a subject of transfer to a European power.” The 
principle received an application twenty-five years later, 
when President Cleveland intervened in a dispute between 
Great Britain and Venezuela, in order to prevent an alleged 
encroachment by the former power upon the Venezuelan bound¬ 
ary of British Guiana. Fortunately for all parties concerned, 
the dispute was settled by arbitration. 

The enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine makes it necessary 
for the United States not only to defend the Latin-American 
republics against foreign aggression, but also to p a n- 
intervene from time to time in their domestic Am encamsm 
affairs. Our warships and soldiers have been repeatedly sent 
to the West Indies, Mexico, and Central America for the purpose 
of protecting American and European citizens and their prop¬ 
erty from rioters or revolutionists. Though grateful to her 
mighty neighbor for help, Latin America has trembled lest our 
intervention to restore order might pass into downright con¬ 
quest. The benevolent purposes of this country are now being 
better understood. It has inaugurated a series of Pan-American 


1 See page 364- 


584 Expansion of Europe in the New World 

conferences, composed of delegates from all the independent 
nations of the New World. With the assistance of the Latin- 
American republics, it has also established the Pan-American 
Union at Washington, which seeks to spread information about 


PACIFIC OCEAN 



A T LAN TI C O C E AN 


Relief Map of the Panama Canal 

the resources and trade of the different countries and also 
to cultivate friendly relations between them. The coopera¬ 
tion of most of the Central American and South American 
nations with the United States, during the World War, cannot 





Canada 585 

fail to strengthen the bonds between the republics of the New 
World. 

The idea of an artificial waterway at Panama or some other 
suitable point had been broached almost as soon as the Spanish 
conquest of Central America and had been re- Panama 
peatedly discussed for more than three centuries. Canal » 1914 
Nothing was done until 1881, when a French company, headed 
by De Lesseps, 1 began excavations at Panama. Extravagance 
and corruption characterized the management of the company 
from the start; it went into bankruptcy before the work was 
half done. The United States in 1902 bought its property 
and rights for forty million dollars. Shortly afterwards, the 
secession of Panama from Colombia enabled the United States 
to obtain from the new republic occupation and control of a 
canal zone, ten miles wide, for the purposes of the canal. The 
work was completed in 1914. The Panama Canal greatly 
shortens the distance between the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the 
Pacific coasts of the New World. This means lower freight 
rates and improvement in the passenger and mail service. 
Increased commerce, travel, and communication will do much 
in the future to bring together and keep together the two 
Americas. 

166. Canada 

The population of Canada in 1763 was almost entirely French. 
After the American Revolution Canada received a large influx 
of “ Tories ” from the Thirteen Colonies, 2 together Upper and 
with numerous emigrants from Great Britain. Lower 
The new settlers had so many quarrels with the ana a 
French Canadians that Parliament in 1791 passed an act 
dividing the country into Upper Canada for the British and 
Lower Canada for the French. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
and Newfoundland remained separate provinces. 

When Great Britain, in retaliation for Napoleon’s Con¬ 
tinental System, issued the Orders in Council, 3 the United 

1 See page 546. 2 See page 267. 3 See page 341. 


586 Expansion of Europe in the New World 

States, as the chief neutral, was also the chief sufferer. The 
injury to American trade, coupled with the quarrel over the 
impressment of seamen, provoked the second war with Great 
War of Britain. It seemed to furnish a good opportunity 

1812-1814 £ or j-hg conquest of Canada, but British and 
French Canadians united in defense of their country and drove 
out the American armies. The treaty of peace left matters 
as they were before the war, except for a heritage of unfriendly 
feeling on the part of the contestants. Even this has dis¬ 
appeared in the course of a century unbroken by the clash of 
arms. The unfortified boundary from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific is an eloquent testimony to the good relations between 
Canada and the United States. 

Canada had done her duty to the British Empire during the 
War of 1812-1814, but she waited more than thirty years for 
The Durham her reward in the shape of self-government. 
Report, 1839 Great Britain, after losing the Thirteen Colonies, 
did nor favor any measures which might result in Canadian 

independence as well. 
Finally, Parliament sent over 
a wise statesman, Lord Dur¬ 
ham, to investigate the poli¬ 
tical discontent in Canada. 
Lord Durham in his Report 
urged that the only method 
of keeping distant colonies 
is to allow them to rule 
themselves. If the Cana¬ 
dians received freedom to 
manage their domestic affairs 
they would be more, and not 
less, loyal, for they would 
have fewer causes of com¬ 
plaint against the mother 
country. The Durham Report produced a lasting effect on 
British colonial policy. Not only did Great Britain grant 
parliamentary institutions and self-government to the Canadian 



The Earl or Durham 


Canada 587 

provinces, but she also oestowed the same privileges upon her 
Australasian and South African dominions. 1 

Another of Lord Durham’s recommendations led to the 
union in 1840 of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada 
(Quebec). In 1867 Ontario and Quebec formed The Domin _ 
with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the con- ion of 
federation known as the Dominion of Canada. Canada ’ 1867 
It has a governor-general, representing the British sovereign, 
a senate whose members hold office for life, and an elective 
house of commons, to which the cabinet of ministers is re¬ 
sponsible. Each Canadian province also maintains a parlia¬ 
ment for local legislation. The distinguishing feature of the 
Canadian constitution is that all powers not definitely assigned 
by it to the provinces belong to the Dominion. Consequently, 
the question of “ States’ rights ” can never be raised in Canada. 

The new Dominion expanded rapidly. It purchased from 
the Hudson Bay Company the extensive territories out of which 
the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Territorial 
Alberta have been created. British Columbia ex P anslon 
and Prince Edward Island soon came into the confederation. 
All the remainder of British North America, except Newfound¬ 
land, which still holds aloof, was annexed in 1878 to the Domin¬ 
ion of Canada. One government now holds sway over the 
whole region from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Circle. 

Equally rapid has been the development of the Dominion 
in wealth and population. The western provinces, formerly 
left to roving Indian tribes and a few white traders, Economic 
are attracting numerous foreign immigrants, development 
Two transcontinental railroads — the Canadian Pacific, com¬ 
pleted in 1886, and the more recent Canadian Northern — 
make accessible the agricultural resources of the Dominion, 
its forests, and its deposits of coal and minerals. Canada 
now ranks as the largest, richest, and most populous member 
of the British Empire. 

The World War did something to break down the isolation 
of Canada from the United States. Many American citizens, 

1 See page 448. 


588 Expansion of Europe in the New World 


before their country entered the struggle, enlisted in the 
Canadian army and fought for democracy under a foreign flag. 
Canada With the return of peace, the closer relations thus 
and the established ought to continue. Canada, increasingly 

United States j nc [ us trial in east b u t agricultural in the west, 
faces much the same economic and social problems as confront 
her southern neighbor. It is worthy of note, in this connection, 
that the great majority of Canadian trade unions affiliate with 
the American Federation of Labor and that American farmers 
are emigrating in large numbers to the prairie provinces of 
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. While the former 
agitation for the incorporation of Canada in the United States 
has quite disappeared on both sides of the boundary line, 
common experiences, interests, and ideals may be expected to 
tighten the bonds between the two English-speaking countries 
of the New World. 

167. Close of Geographical Discovery 

Half the globe was still unmapped in 1800. Canada, Alaska, 
and the Louisiana territory were so little known that a geog- 
Unmapped raphy published at this time omits any reference 
regions, 1800 j- 0 R oc ky Mountains. South America, though 

long settled by white men, continued to be largely unexplored. 
Scant information existed about the Pacific islands and Aus¬ 
tralia. Much of Asia remained sealed to Europeans. Accurate 
knowledge of Africa did not reach beyond the edges of that 
continent. The larger part of the Arctic realm had not yet been 
discovered, and the Antarctic realm had barely been touched. 

Discoveries and explorations during the nineteenth century 
carried forward the geographical conquest of the world. The 
Filling in great African rivers were traced to their sources 

the map j n t h e h ear t G f w hat had once been the “ Dark 

Continent. 5 ’ In Asia, the headwaters of the Indus and the 
Ganges were reached; the Himalayas measured and shown 
to be the loftiest of mountains; Tibet, the mysterious, 
penetrated; and the veil of darkness shrouding China, Korea, 
Farther India, and other Asiatic countries lifted. Travelers 



























































































































































































































' 






















' 










































. 
















. 


; , [j 















































Close of Geographical Discovery 589 

penetrated the deserts of inner Australia and finally crossed 
the entire continent from south to north. The journeys of 
Alexander von Humboldt in the Amazon and Orinoco valleys 
(1799-1804) inaugurated the systematic exploration of South 
America, while those of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806) opened 
up the Louisiana territory. Still later, Alaska, the Northwest 
Territories of Canada, and Labrador began to emerge from their 
obscurity. Even Greenland was crossed by Nansen, a Nor¬ 
wegian, and its coast was charted by Danish geographers and 
the American Peary. 

Voyages in search of the Northwest Passage 1 had already 
revealed the labyrinth of islands, peninsulas, and ice-bound 
channels north of the American continent. Many Arctic 
heroic but fruitless attempts had also been made ex P 1( > ratl o n 
to reach the North Pole. Nansen in 1892-1895 utilized the 
ice drift to carry his ship, the 
Fram, across the polar sea. 

Finding that the drift would 
not take him to the pole, he 
left the Fram and with a single 
companion advanced to 86° 14' 

N., or within two hundred and 
seventy-two miles of the pole. 

An Italian expedition, a few 
years later, got still farther 
north. The honor of actually 
reaching the pole was carried 
off by Peary in 1909. He 
traveled the last stages of the 
journey by sledge over the ice 
and reached his goal in com¬ 
pany with a colored servant and several Eskimos. Nansen’s 
and Peary’s journeys showed that no land exists in the north 
polar basin, only a sea of great but unknown depth. 

The south polar region, on the other hand, is a land mass of 

1 The Northwest Passage was first completely navigated by the Norwegian 
Amundsen between 1903 and 1906. 



Robert E. Peary 



140 ° 160 180 ° 160 


59° Expansion of Europe in the New World 



o 



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HO “ST-' 



S ."9 

© ■ • 
oo;. 




























































Close of Geographical Discovery 591 

continental dimensions. First approached by Cook on his 
second voyage, 1 it has since been visited by many explorers. 
They have traced the course of the great ice Antarctic 
barrier, discovered extensive mountain ranges, and exploration 
even found two volcanoes belching forth lava amidst the snows. 
In 1907-1909 a British expedition under Sir Ernest Shackleton 
attained 88° 23' S., or within ninety-seven miles of the pole. 
Amundsen, who reached the pole in 1911, was soon followed by 
Captain R. F. Scott, but this gallant Englishman and his four 
companions died of cold and starvation on the return journey. 
The records of polar exploration are, indeed, full of tragedies. 

Considerable spaces of the earth's surface still await scientific 
investigation. The Antarctic continent and Greenland offer 
many problems to geographers. The enormous Regions still 
basin of the Amazon is still little known. Practi- unmapped 
cally no knowledge exists of the interior of New Guinea, the 
largest of islands, if Australia be reckoned as a continent. 
Australia itself has not been completely explored. In Asia, 
there is still much information to be gained concerning the 
great central plateau, the Arctic coast, and inner Arabia. 
Equatorial Africa affords another promising field for dis¬ 
covery. It thus remains for the twentieth century to complete 
the geographical conquest of the world. 

Studies 

1. What parts of the New World are to-day occupied or colonized by Anglo- 
Saxon peoples? By Latin peoples? 2. What is the origin of the names Colombia, 
Venezuela, Bolivia, Louisiana, and Alberta? 3. Trace the routes followed by the 
Trans-Andean and Canadian Pacific railroads. 4. Name and locate the capitals 
of the twenty Latin American republics. 5. What European powers retain pos¬ 
sessions in South America, Central America, and the West Indies? 6. Who 
were Bolivar, Dom Pedro II, Benito Juarez, and Porfirio Diaz? 7. Trace on the 
map the expansion of the United States. 8. Compare American expansion 
westward with Russian expansion eastward. 9. Name the principal trans¬ 
continental railroads in the United States. 10. How was the promulgation of 
the Monroe Doctrine a check to Metternichismus? 11. What do you understand 
by Pan-Americanism? 12. Why has Lord Durham’s Report been styled the 
“Magna Carta of the British colonies”? 13. What were the successive steps in 
the formation of the Dominion of Canada? 14. On the map, page 590, follow 
Nansen’s, Peary’s, and Amundsen’s routes in the polar regions. 

1 See page 273. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 


168. Nature of the Industrial Revolution 

The year 1776 , the year of the Declaration of Independence 
and of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations , also marks, approxi- 
Peiiod of mately, the commencement of the Industrial 

the industrial Revolution. No other word except “ revolution ” 
Revolution g0 we ^ describes those wholesale changes in 
manufacturing, transportation, and other industries, which, 
within a century and a half, have transformed modern life. 
This revolution originated in Great Britain, spread after 1815 
to the Continent and the United States, and now extends 
throughout the civilized world. 

The rapid expansion of European peoples over Africa, Asia, 
Oceania, and America, as described in the two preceding 
Colonial chapters, was itself largely an outcome of the 

expansion Industrial Revolution. Improvements in means 
and the ...... 

industrial of transportation — railroads, canals, steam navi- 

Revoiution gation — by facilitating travel permitted an 
extensive emigration from Europe into other continents. Im¬ 
proved communication — the telegraph and the telephone — 
by annihilating distance made easier the occupation and govern¬ 
ment of remote dependencies. The growth of manufacturing 
in Europe also gave increased Importance to colonies as sources 
of supply for raw materials and foodstuffs, as markets for 
finished goods, and as places of investment for the surplus 
wealth accumulated by the capitalists whom the Industrial 
Revolution created. 

The Industrial Revolution also created a numerous body of 
wage-earners, who moved from rural districts and villages 

592 


Nature of the Industrial Revolution 


593 


into the factories, sweatshops, and tenements of the great 

cities. There, in spite of a crowded, miserable existence they 

gradually learned the value of organization. 

® . . . . . . . Democracy 

They formed trade unions m order to secure higher and the 

wages and shorter hours. They read newspapers Industrial 

? . . .. . J ^ Revolution 

and pamphlets, hstened to speeches by agitators, 

and began to agitate for laws which would improve their lot. 
Then they went further and demanded the right to vote, to 
hold office, to enjoy all the liberty and equality which the 
bourgeoisie , or middle class, had won from monarchs and aristo¬ 
crats. The Industrial Revolution furnished much of the driv¬ 
ing power for the revolutionary outbreaks of 1830 and 1848, 
and especially for that democratic movement which has been 
so marked in Europe since 1871. It thus reinforced the new 
ideas of democracy introduced into the world by the American 
and French revolutions. 

The Industrial Revolution likewise fostered the national 
movement in Europe during the last century. Railroads, 
canals, steamboats, telegraphs, and telephones Nationalism 
have been compared to a network of veins and and the 
arteries carrying the blood of the nation from the 
capital to the remotest province. Such increased 
facilities for travel and communication inevitably caused the 
disappearance of local prejudices and provincial limitations. 
It was now far easier for the people of each country to realize 
their common interests than when they lived isolated in small 
rural communities. Old nations, like Great Britain and France, 
became more closely knit; new nations, like Italy and Germany, 
arose; and the “ submerged nationalities ” of Europe started 
an agitation for self-government or for complete independence. 

Great Britain took the lead in the Industrial Revolution. 
Her damp climate proved to be very favorable to the manu¬ 
facture of textiles, her swift streams supplied TheIndus _ 
abundant water power for machinery, and beneath trial Revoiu- 
her soil lay stores of coal and iron ore. There Great 

were other favoring circumstances. Industry in 
Great Britain was less fettered by guild restrictions than on the 


594 


The Industrial Revolution 


Continent. She possessed more surplus capital for investment, 
more skilled laborers, and a larger merchant marine than any 
other country. Furthermore, Great Britain had emerged from 
the Seven Years’ War victorious over all her rivals for maritime 
and commercial supremacy. Her trade in the markets of the 
world grew by leaps and bounds after 1763. The enormous 
demand for British goods in its turn stimulated the mechanical 
genius of British artisans and so produced the era of the great 
inventions. 


169. The Great Inventions 

Man has advanced from savagery to civilization chiefly 
through invention. Beginning in prehistoric times, he slowly 
, * discovered how to supplement hands and feet 

and teeth and nails by the use of tools. From 
the tool it was a forward step to the machine, which, when 
supplied with muscular energy, only needed to be directed by 
man to do his work. The highest type of machine is one 
driven by natural forces — by wind, waterfall, steam, gas, 
or electricity. The invention of tools .gnd machinery thus 
gives man an ever-increasing control over, nature. He becomes 
nature’s conqueror, rather than its slave. 

A list of prehistoric tools and machines would include many 
kinds of implements, first of stone and then of metal: levers, 
Development rollers, and wedges; bows-^and-arrows, slings, and 
of invention lassos; oars, sails, and rudders; fishing nets, 
lines, and hooks; the plow and the wheeled cart; the needle, 
bellows, and potter’s wheel; the distaff and spindle for spinning; 
and the hand loom for weaving. Few important additions 
were made to this fist in antiquity, even by such cultivated 
peoples as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. 
The Middle Ages were also singularly barren of inventions. 
It was only toward the close of the medieval period that gun¬ 
powder, the mariner’s compass, paper, and movable type 
reached Europe from Asia. More progress took place during 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which produced the 
telescope, microscope, thermometer and barometer, clocks and 










































>North I Cape 



40 


CANDIA\ 'AlSt^NOS \ 

y %. \ cvpR' jsN '^ 

S' E "A 


1 1 Chief Industrial Districts 1 1 Coalfields 

The letters indicate the nature of the Chief Industries 

C Cotton I Iron L Linen M Machinery S Silk W Wool 

I I Agriculture and Stock-rearing 1 .1 Fishing 

Principal Railways: 

Steamship Lines '• — 

International Territories: 


Canals: 
Plebiscites: 







































p •• . 

4 

■ 

. 




' 

K - 






' 



















. 














The Great Inventions 


595 



watches run by weights, sawmills driven by wind or water, an 
improved form of the windmill, and the useful though humble 
wheelbarrow. Manufacturing and 
transportation continued, however, to 
be carried on in much the same rude 
way as before the dawn of history. 

The revolution in manufacturing 
began with the textile industry. 

Old-fashioned spinning Old-fashioned 
formed a slow, labor- spinmng 
ious process. The wool, flax, or 
cotton, having been fastened to a 
stick called the distaff, was twisted 
by hand into yarn or thread and 
wound upon a spindle. The spinning 
wheel — long known in India and 
not unknown in Europe as early as 
the fourteenth century — afterwards 
came into general use. The spinner 

now no longer held the spindle in the small wheel with the grooved 
i i j i , , •, r pulley, or wharve, on the spindle 

her hand, but set it upon a frame (C) . The revo i utions c f the large 
and connected it by a belt to the wheel turned the small wheel very 

wheel, which, when revolved, turned to the spkdk through the whan*, 
the spindle. The subsequent addi¬ 
tion of a treadle to move the wheel freed both hands of the 
spinner, so that she could twist two threads instead of one. 

Weaving was done on the hand loom, a wooden frame to 
which vertical threads (the warp) were attached. Hori¬ 
zontal threads (the weft or woof) were then in- Old-fashioned 
serted by means of an enlarged needle or shuttle. weavmg 
This primitive method, followed for thousands of years through¬ 
out the world, was first improved by the Englishman, John 
Kay, in 1733. His invention of the “ flying shuttle ” enabled 
the operator, by pulling a cord, to jerk the shuttle back and 
forth without the aid of an assistant and also much more rapidly 
than by hand. The device thus saved labor and doubled the 
speed of weaving. 


A Spinning Wheel 

A band or cord (E) connected the 
large wheel with the small wheel 
(D). Another cord (F) connected 





The Industrial Revolution 


596 



Hargreaves’s “Spinning Jenny 


The demand for thread and yarn quickly outran the supply, 
for the spinners could not keep up with the weavers. Prizes 
Hargreaves’s were t ^ ien °^ ere( i for a better machine than the 
“ spinning spinning wheel. At length, James Hargreaves, a 
jenny, 1770 p 00r wor k man 0 f Lancashire in northern England, 

patented what he 
named the “ spinning 
jenny,” in compliment 
to his industrious wife. 
This machine carried 
a number of spindles 
turned by cords or 
belts from the same 
wheel, and operated 
by hand. It was a 
very simple affair, but 
it spun at first eight threads then sixteen, and within the in¬ 
ventor’s own lifetime 
eighty, thus doing 
the work of many 
spinning wheels. 

The thread spun by 
the “spinning jenny” 

Arkwright’s was s 0 
“ water frail that 

frame,” 1769 .. 

1t could 

be used only for the 
weft. The spinners 
needed a machine to 
produce a hard, strong 
thread for the warp. 

Richard Arkwright 
met this need by the 
invention of the 
“water frame,” so 
called because it was run by water power. The machine con¬ 
tained two sets of rollers, one rotating at a higher speed than the 



Arkwright’s Spinning Machine 

Above, draft rollers; below, flyer spindles; at the left, 
wheel which propelled the entire mechanism. 













































The Great Inventions 


597 


other. The cotton was drawn out by the rollers to the requisite 
fineness and was then twisted into thread by revolving spindles. 



Crompton’s Spinning “Mule” 


Samuel Crompton soon combined the essential features of 
the Hargreaves and Arkwright machines into what became 
known as the 
“ mule,” because 

of its Crompton’s 
hybrid “mule,” 

. • 1779 

origin. 

When the mech¬ 
anism was drawn 
out on its wheels 
one way, the strands 
of cotton were 
stretched and 
twisted into 
threads; when it 
was run back the 
other way, the 
spun threads were 
wound on spindles. 

The “ mule ” quite 
superseded Har¬ 
greaves’s device. It 



Cartwright’s First Power LpoM 

The shuttle was propelled mechanically through the long, 
trough-shaped form extending out at the sides. 











































































59« 


The Industrial Revolution 


has been steadily improved, and at the present time may carry 
as many as two thousand spindles. 

These three inventions again upset the balance in the textile 
industry, for now the spinners could produce more thread and 

Cartwright’s y am than th e 



power loom, 
1785 


'■y„yj : VLyVc/ 

Whitney’s Cotton Gin 

After the original model. 


weavers could 
convert into 
cloth. The invention 
which revolutionized weav¬ 
ing was made by Edmund 
Cartwright, an English 
clergyman, who had never 
even seen a weaver at 
work. He constructed a 
loom with an automatic 
shuttle operated by water 
power. Improvements in this machine enable a single operator 
to produce more cloth than two hundred men could weave 
on the old-fashioned 
hand loom. 

Both spinners and 
weavers required for 
The cotton the new 
gin, 1794 machi¬ 
nery an abundant 
supply of raw ma¬ 
terial. They found 
it in cotton, which 
previously had been 
much less used than 
either wool or flax. 

Eli Whitney of Con¬ 
necticut, while visit¬ 
ing a cotton planta¬ 
tion in Georgia, 
conceived the idea 

of what he called an Watt’s Steam Engine, 1780 









































































The Great Inventions 


599 


engine, or gin, for separating the seeds from the raw cotton more 
rapidly than negro slaves could do it by hand. His cotton 
gin, which was first patented in 1794, stimulated enormously 
American production of cotton for the mills of Great Britain. 

What was to furnish motive power for the new machinery? 
Windmills were obviously too unreliable to be profitably used. 
Human hands had at first operated Hargreaves’s The original 
“spinning jenny,” and horses had worked Ark- steam engine 
wright’s original machine. Both inventors, however, soon 
turned to water power to drive the wheel, and numerous mills 
were built along the streams of northern England. Then 
came steam power. The expansive force of steam, though 
known in antiquity, was first put to practical service at the 
close of the seventeenth century, when steam pumps were 
invented for ridding mines of water. The earliest steam engine 
was a crude affair. After the steam entered the cylinder and 
pushed the piston upward, cold water had to be sprayed into 
the cylinder in order to condense the steam. This alternate 
heating and chilling consumed too much coal and too much time. 

James Watt, a Scotchman of mechanical genius, patented an 
improved steam pump in 1769, a year also memorable for 
Arkwright’s first patent. Watt’s engine bore watt’s 
the name of “Beelzebub,” an appropriate name, steam engine, 
for it breathed smoke and fire and otherwise acted 
in a devilish manner. The inventor himself was a poor man, 
but he entered into partnership with a wealthy manufacturer 
of Birmingham, who took an intelligent interest in the new 
machine and supplied the necessary funds for making it a 
commercial success. By providing a separate condenser into 
which the steam was led after it raised the piston and by 
enclosing the cylinder in an air-tight jacket to maintain its 
heat, Watt overcame the two greatest defects of the steam 
pump. He subsequently patented devices by which the 
back-and-forth motion of the piston could be made to drive 
a wheel connected by a belt with machinery, a throttle- 
valve to regulate the rate of admission of steam into the 
cylinder, a governor to control the speed of rotation, and 


6oo 


The Industrial Revolution 


an indicator* to record steam pressure. These and other 
improvements opened up new fields of usefulness for steam 
power. In 1785, the year of Cartwright’s invention, the Watt 
engine began to be set up in factories for the operation of 
spinning machines and looms. Steam power only slowly dis¬ 
placed water power, however, owing to the fact that much 
capital had already been invested in water-driven cotton mills. 

The nineteenth century has been called the age of steam. 
The steamboat, the steam locomotive, and the steam printing 
The age press are some of the children of Watt’s epochal 

of steam invention. Toward the close of the century 

electricity began to compete with steam as a motive force, after 
the invention of that mystic marvel of science, the dynamo, 
and in the twentieth century the gas engine, as applied to 
automobiles, airplanes, tractors, and other machines, continued 
the Industrial Revolution. 

The growing use of machinery called for an increased produc¬ 
tion of iron. Northern and north-central England contained 
The age of vast deposits of iron ore, but until the latter part 
iron and steel G f ^ e eighteenth century they had been little 
worked. Improved methods of smelting with coal and coke, 
by means of the blast furnace, were then adopted. Steel, 
a product of iron, whose toughness and hardness had been 
prized for ages, was not manufactured on a large scale until 
after 1850. Better methods of manufacture now enable the 
poorest iron to be converted into excellent steel, thus opening 
up extensive fields of low-grade ore in France, Germany, and 
other countries. Used in every form, from building-girders 
to watch springs, steel is now the mainstay of modern industry. 

The manufacture of iron and steel and the operation of the 
new machinery required an abundant, inexpensive fuel. Coal 
The age had long been burned in small quantities for 

°f coal domestic purposes; applied to the steam engine 

arid the blast furnace it was to become an almost boundless 
source of power and heat. Various improvements in mining 
cheapened its production, one of the most notable being Sir 
Humphry Davy’s use of wire gauze to protect miners’ lamps 


Effects of the Great Inventions 601 

from the explosion of fire-damp. This simple invention, 
besides saving thousands of fives, enabled the most dangerous 
mines to be worked with comparative safety. Great Britain 
furnished nearly all the coal for manufacturing until the middle of 
the nineteenth century; later, much of the world’s supply has 
come from the mines of France, Germany, and the United States. 

Mineral oil, or petroleum, has become an industrial rival 
of coal, since the first oil well was sunk in Pennsylvania in 
1859. There are now more than three hundred The age 
products of petroleum, the most, important being of 011 
kerosene for illumination, gasolene (petrol) for gas engines, 
and fuel oil for oil-burning ships and locomotives. The United 
States is still the chief producer of oil, but we now consume 
even more than we produce. Our national requirements in 
1918 amounted to 413 million barrels, equal to the flow of 
water over Niagara Falls for three hours. Many new sources 
of supply will have to be opened up throughout the world, 
if the present consumption of petroleum in the United States, 
Great Britain, and other countries is to continue indefinitely. 

170. Effects of the Great Inventions 

The great inventions, besides hastening the transition from 
hand-labor to machine-labor, also did much to separate labor 
and capital. No such separation was possible Guild 
in the Middle Ages. A master who belonged to a s y stem 
craft guild purchased his raw materials at the city market or at 
a fair, manufactured them in his own house, assisted by the 
members of his family and usually by a few journeymen and 
apprentices, and himself sold the finished article to the person 
who had ordered it. This guild system, as it is called, has not 
entirely disappeared. One may still have a pair of shoes made 
by a “ custom ” shoemaker or a suit of clothes made by a “ cus¬ 
tom ” tailor. 

The growing exclusiveness of the craft guilds, toward the 
close of the medieval period, 1 prevented many apprentices and 


1 See pages 280-281. 


602 


The Industrial Revolution 


journeymen from ever becoming masters. Consequently, 
workers often left the cities and settled in the country or in 
Domestic villages where there were no guild restrictions, 
system The movement gave rise to the domestic system, 

as found, for example, in the British cotton industry. A middle¬ 
man with some capital would purchase a supply of raw cotton 
and distribute it to the spinners and weavers to convert into 
cloth on their own spinning wheels and hand looms. They 
worked at home and usually eked out their wages by cultivating 
a small garden plot. Something akin to the domestic system 
still survives in the sweatshops of modern cities where clothing 
is made on “ commission.” 

It is clear that under the domestic system the middleman 
provided the raw materials, took all the risks, and received all 
Factory the profits. The workers, on the other hand, had 

system to acce pt such wages and labor upon such con¬ 

ditions as he was willing to offer. The separation of labor and 
capital, which thus began under the domestic system, became 
complete under the factory system. Arkwright’s, Crompton’s, 
and Cartwright’s machines were too expensive for a single 
family to own; too large and heavy for use in private houses; 
and they needed water power or steam power to operate them. 
The consequence was that the domestic laborer abandoned his 
household industry and went with hundreds of others to work 
in a mill or factory. The capitalist employer now not only 
provided the raw materials and disposed of the finished product, 
but he also owned the machinery and the workshop. The 
word “ manufacturer ” 1 no longer applied to the hand-worker, 
but to the person who employed others to work for him. 

The factory system introduced a minute division of labor into 
industry. Thus, there are forty operations involved in the 
Division of manufacture of ready-made clothing; nearly 
labor one hundred in the manufacture of shoes; and 

over a thousand in the construction of a fine watch. Many 
men, working together, may turn out in a few minutes an article 

1 Latin manu, facere, to make by hand. Manufacture by machinery has been 
well-named machinofaaure. 


Effects of the Great Inventions 


















































































604 


The Industrial Revolution 


which one man in former times required weeks or months to 
produce. The division of labor, besides saving time, also 
increased output. A single instance will show this. Adam 
Smith, writing in 1776, contrasted the one pin which an artisan 
might make in a day, if he did all the work himself, with the 
five thousand pins which he could produce each day in a factory. 
Now, however, when pins are made by automatic machinery, 
the average daily output for each operative totals over a million. 

Machinery, the factory system, and the division of labor 
made it possible to manufacture on a large scale and in enormous 
Large-scale quantities for world-wide markets. For example, 
production the value of British cotton goods rose from one 
million dollars in 1760 to six hundred times that amount in 1910. 
Similar increases were registered in other textile manufactures 
and in the iron industry of Great Britain. 

The Industrial Revolution soon changed the face of Great 
Britain. Instead of -farms, hamlets, and an occasional small 
Industrial town, appeared great cities crowded with workers 
Great Britain w ho had left their rural homes to seek employment 
in factories. The movement of population was especially 
toward the northern and northwestern counties, where there 
were many streams to furnish water power and abundant 
supplies of coal and iron. Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and 
Birmingham sprang up as centers for the manufacture of tex¬ 
tiles and hardware, while Liverpool, little more than a village 
at the opening of the nineteenth century, became a commercial 
metropolis. Aside from London, it is northern England and 
southern Scotland which to-day form the chief seat of British 
trade and industry. 1 

The Industrial Revolution began later on the Continent 
than in Great Britain, partly because of the opposition of the 
Primacy of guilds, which feared that the new machinery 
Great Britain would deprive workers of employment; partly 
m industry because Continental manufacturers showed less 
enterprise than their British rivals; but chiefly because the 
revolutionary and Napoleonic wars left France and Germany 

1 See page 4^9* 


Improvements in Transportation 


605 


too exhausted to compete in manufacturing. Great Britain 
thus became by 1815 the world’s workshop and the richest 
of European nations. It was only toward the close of the 
nineteenth century that her industrial primacy began to be 
seriously threatened by Germany and the United States. 

171. Improvements in Transportation 

Civilized man until the Industrial Revolution continued to 
use the conveyances which had been invented by uncivilized 
man in prehistoric times. Travel and transport Old-fashioned 
were still on horseback, or in Utters, wheeled carts, conveyances 
rowboats, and sailboats. Various improvements produced the 
sedan chair, the stagecoach, and large ocean-going ships, 
without, however, finding any substitutes for muscles or wind 
as the motive power. 

The roads in western Europe scarcely deserved that name; 
they were little more than track ways, either deep with mud or 
dusty and full of ruts. Passengers in stagecoaches Roads 
seldom made more than fifty miles a day, while 
heavy goods had to be moved on pack horses. Conditions in 
Great Britain im¬ 
proved during the 
latter part of the 
eighteenth century, 
for the enormous 
quantity of goods 
produced by the new 
machinery increased 
the need for cheap 
and rapid transport. 

The turnpike system, 
allowing tolls to be 

charged for the use of roads, encouraged the investment of 
capital by private companies in these undertakings; and it was 
not long before Telford, Macadam, and other engineers covered 
the country with well-bottomed, well-drained, and well-surfaced 
highways. The splendid highways which attract the attention 



An Eighteenth-century Stagecoach 
A fter an old print. 












The Industrial Revolution 


6 c6 


of Americans on the Continent were all built in the nineteenth 
century, chiefly before the era of railroads. 

The expense of transportation by road led people in antiquity 
and the Middle Ages to send their goods by river routes, when¬ 
ever possible. Canal-building in Europe began 
toward the close of the medieval period, especially 
after the invention of locks for controlling the flow and level 
of the water. The great era of the-canal was between 1775 
and 1850, not only in Great Britain and on the Continent, 
but also in the United States. Canals relieved the highways 


Canals 



The “ Great Western 


of a large part of the growing traffic, but the usefulness of both 
declined after the introduction of railroads. Ship canals, how¬ 
ever, have begun to be constructed within recent years, as a 
result of the general adoption of steam navigation on the ocean. 

The earliest successful steamboat appears to have been a tug 
built in Scotland for towing canal boats. Robert Fulton, an 
American engineer who had lived in England 
and France, adapted the steamboat to river navi¬ 
gation. His side-wheeler, the Clermont , equipped 
with a Watt engine, began in 1807 to make regular trips on 
the Hudson between New York and Albany. Twelve years 
later an American vessel, provided with both sails and a steam 
engine, crossed the Atlantic in twenty-nine days. The first 
ship to cross without using sails or recoaling on the way was 
the Great Western , in 1838. The trip took her fifteen days. 


The steam¬ 
boat 

















JAMES WATT ROBERT FULTON 

After the painting by Sir William Beechey. After the painting by Benjamin West 



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Improvements in Transportation 607 

Various improvements since the middle of the nineteenth 
century added greatly to the efficiency of ocean steamers. 
Iron, and later steel, replaced wood in their con- steam 
struction, with a resulting gain in strength and navigation 
buoyancy. Screw propellers were substituted for clumsy 
paddle wheels, and turbine engines, which apply the energy of 



A reconstruction prepared by the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Committee, 1907. 


a jet of steam to secure the rotation of a shaft, were intro¬ 
duced. The size of steamers, also, has so increased that the 
Great Western , a boat of 1378 tons and 212 feet in length, would 


appear a pygmy by the side of 
thans” which now cross the 
Atlantic in less than six days. 

Wooden or iron rails had 
long been used in mines and 
quarries to enable The steam 
horses to draw lo comotive 
heavy loads with ease, and as 
early as 1803 a horse-car line 
was opened to general traffic in 
the suburbs of London. George 
Stephenson, who profited by the 
experiments of other inventors, 
produced in 1814 a successful 
.locomotive for hauling coal from 
the mine to tide-water. He im¬ 
proved his model and eleven 
years later secured its adoption 


the fifty-thousand ton “levia- 



George Stephenson 












6 o8 


The Industrial Revolution 


on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first line over 
which passengers and freight were carried by steam power. 
Stephenson also built the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 



Built by Stephenson to compete in a trial of locomotive engines for the Liverpool 
and Manchester Railway. The greatest speed it attained in the trial was 29 
miles an hour, but some years later it ran at the rate of S3 miles an hour. The total 
weight of the engine and tender was only about 7J tons. 


which was opened in 1830 and on which his famous engine, 
the Rocket , made its maiden trip. 

Many technical improvements — the increased size of loco¬ 
motives and cars, air brakes, and the use of steel rails in place 
Railroad °f i ron ra ^ s which supported only light loads and 
transporta- wore out rapidly — have extended the usefulness 
of the railroad far beyond the dreams of its earlier 
promoters. The greatest development of railroad transporta¬ 
tion came in the latter part of the nineteenth century, with 
the construction of great “ trunk ” lines and branches (“feed¬ 
ers ”) radiating into the remotest districts. The year 1869 
saw the first transcontinental line in the United States (the 
Union Pacific and Central Pacific); 1900, the Trans-Siberian 
fine; and 1910 the Trans-Andean line. Western Europe and 
the United States are now covered with a network of rail¬ 
roads, and these are being extended rapidly to all civilized 
and even semi-civilized lands. 















Improvements in Transportation 609 

Modern electric traction dates from the early ’eighties of the 
last century, when the overhead trolley began to supplant 
horse cars and cable cars in cities. The develop- Electric 
ment of the electric locomotive promises to bring traction 
about a partial substitution of electricity for steam on rail¬ 
roads through tunnels and over heavy grades. 

The earliest application of steam power to transportation 
was neither the railway nor the steam boat but the road engine. 
As far back as 1801 an English inventor con- The 
structed a steam carriage for passengers. Re- automobile 
peated efforts were made during the next forty years to 
popularize the new mode of travel in England, but bad roads 



An old picture of F. Hill’s steam carriage running between London 
and Birmingham, 1839-1843. 


and an unsympathetic public discouraged inventors. The 
automobile had to wait for the gas or “ internal com¬ 
bustion engine (as patented in the last decade of the 
nineteenth century) to become a commercial success. In 1925 
there were more than seventeen million automobiles operated 
in the United States alone. 

The gas engine is likewise responsible for the airplane. Its 
history illustrates the truth that great inventions do not spring 
fully developed from the brain of one man, but, on the con- 







The Industrial Revolution 


610 

trary, represent the long and patient experimentation of many 
men. An American scientist, S. P. Langley, who himself owed 

. , much to the work of others, produced in 1003 
The airplane . . , . . . . f. . . . 

a heavier-than-air machine which was driven 

by steam. The accidents attending its first trials caused it 
to be abandoned. Eleven years later the same machine was 
successfully flown by Mr. G. H. Curtiss, thus showing that 
Langley had solved the problem of mechanical flight. The 
Wright Brothers followed where Langley had led the way, 
and in 1908 they made their first public flights, using an airplane 
fitted with a gas engine. As every one knows, the exigencies 
of the World War resulted in an extraordinarily rapid develop¬ 
ment of the airplane. Its powers were most strikingly revealed 
by two British aviators, Alcock and Brown, who in June, 
1919, made a non-stop flight across the Atlantic from New¬ 
foundland to Ireland, covering the distance in less than 
sixteen hours. Since then there have been air races across 
the United States, and in 1924 the air-flight around the globe of 
three American aviators, Lieutenants Smith, Wade, and Nelson. 

Two Frenchmen, the Montgolfier Brothers, invented the 
balloon in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Ex- 
The airship periments in balloon navigation continued through¬ 
out the nineteenth century, and finally Count 
Zeppelin, an officer in the German army, produced an airship 
which consisted, not of one balloon, but of a row of bags en¬ 
closed in an enormous shell of aluminium trellis work. It 
carried two cars, each provided with a gas motor. The trial 
of this Zeppelin in 1900 showed how nearly the problem of a 
dirigible balloon had been solved. Other successful airships 
were soon constructed in France and England. The World 
War stimulated their development, as was the case with the 
airplane. To the British dirigible, the R-34, belongs the 
renown of having been the first to cross the Atlantic (July 
2-6, 1919). The R-34 carried a crew and passengers from 
Scotland to Long Island, covering the distance of 3200 miles 
in a trifle more than 108 hours. The return trip took only 
three days. 


Improved Communications 611 


As far back as the Revolutionary War, an American inventor 
constructed a tiny submarine and tried, without success, to 
sink a British warship. Robert Fulton, encour- The 
aged by Napoleon, made several submarines. In subm anne 
one of them he descended to a depth of twenty-five feet, re¬ 
mained below for four hours, and succeeded in blowing up a 
small vessel with a torpedo. Under-water boats, propelled 
by steam power, were used by the Confederates in the Civil 
War. From about this time inventors in several countries 
worked on the problem of the submarine. One of the most 
successful was an Irish-American, J. P. Holland, who sold the 
boat named after him to the United States in 1898. The 
improvement of the submarine from this time is a familiar 
story. Thus, in the course of about a century, man has com¬ 
pleted the conquest of land and air and sea. 


172. Improved Communications 



Scientists of the eighteenth century, familiar with 
the Leyden jar, often discussed the idea of using elec¬ 
tricity to communicate at a distance, but a prac¬ 
ticable ■ x , 

The telegraph 

appa¬ 
ratus for convert¬ 
ing the electric cur¬ 
rent into intelligible 
signs did not appear 
until the ’thirties 
of the nineteenth 
century. Samuel 
F. B. Morse, an 
American, deserves 
perhaps the great¬ 
est credit for the 
invention. He also 
devised the “Morse Morse’s First Telegraph Instrument (1837) 

alphabet ” The t ^ ie National Museum, Washington. 

telegraph found an immediate application on the railroads and 




















6 l2 


The Industrial Revolution 


in the transmission of government messages. Later, it made 
its way into the business world. 

Hardly any one at first be¬ 
lieved that a telegraph line could 
Submarine be carried across 
cables the ocean. Ex¬ 

periments soon showed, how¬ 
ever, that wire cords, protected 
by wrappers of guttapercha, 
would conduct the electric cur¬ 
rent under water. The first 
cable was laid from Dover to 
Calais in 1851. A group of 
American promoters, including 
Cyrus W. Field, then took up 
the project of an Atlantic cable 
which should “moor the new 
world alongside the old.” Dis¬ 
couraging failures marked the enterprise. The first cables were 
broken by the ocean, and the line which was finally laid in 1858 
soon became useless, owing to the failure of its electrical in¬ 
sulation. After the Civil War Field renewed his efforts, and 
in 1866 a cable two thou¬ 
sand miles long was success¬ 
fully laid and communica¬ 
tion perfected. No less 
than fourteen lines now 
stretch across the Atlantic, 
while all the other oceans 
have been electrically 
bridged. 

Experimentation with 
rude forms of the telephone 
The tele- began in the 

phone same decade 

which produced the telegraph. Little progress took place until 
1875, when Alexander Graham Bell, a native of Edinburgh but 



The Original Atlantic Cable 

The illustration shows seven copper wires (4) 
forming a conductor; a wrapping of thread (3) 
soaked in pitch; several layers of gutta percha 
(2); and the covering of twisted wires (1). 



Cyrus W. Field 









Improved Communications 613 

later a resident of Boston, patented his first instrument. Many 
improvements have since been made in it by Bell himself, 
Edison, and others. 

The invention of wire¬ 
less telegraphy by the 
Italian, . 

Guglielmo telegraphy 

Marconi, and teleph- 
, ony 

may be 

said to date from 1899, 
when wireless messages 
were sent between 
France and England 
across the Channel. A 
trans-Atlantic service 
by “wireless” began 
eight years later, and since then the range of Marconi’s appa¬ 
ratus has been greatly extended. The still more recent in¬ 
troduction of wireless telephony promises to work another 
revolution in long-distance communication. ’Already speech 
without wires is possible between Paris and New York. 

A regular postal service under government management 
existed in Europe as early as the seventeenth 
century, but it was slow, expen- The postal 
sive, and little used. Stamps were service 
unknown, prepayment of postage was considered 
an insult, and rates increased according to dis¬ 
tance. The modern postal service began in 
Great Britain in 1840, with the adoption of a 
uniform charge irrespective of distance (penny 
postage), prepayment, and the use of stamps. 
These reforms soon spread to other countries 
and everywhere resulted in greatly increased use 
of the mails. The International Postal Union 
(1874), with a central office at Berne, Switzer¬ 
land, makes arrangements for common rates of foreign postage 
and for cooperation in carrying the mails from country to 



First Adhesive 
Penny Postage 
Stamp 

The design, a con¬ 
ventionalized head of 
Queen Victoria, was 
used without change 
from 1840 to 1870. 



As invented by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. 






6 14 The Industrial Revolution 

country. The development of aviation has led some gov¬ 
ernments to establish an aerial post for first-class matter. 
The first instance of the sort in the United States is the 
service established in 1918 between Washington and New 
York. 

Weekly and daily newspapers also began to appear in the 
seventeenth century, but they were luxuries reserved for sub- 
„ scribers of the middle and upper classes. The 

NewsDaoers 1 ± 

cheap newspaper for the masses is a product of 
the Industrial Revolution. The London Times installed the 
first steam printing press in 1814. A paper-making machine, 


SUN. 


Nimbcr i.J new YORK, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1833. [Price Oke Pqoy. 



The First Copy op the New York “Sun” 

The New York Sun, established in 1833, was the first penny newspaper in the 
United States. 


which produced wide sheets of unlimited length, came into 
use soon after. To these inventions must be added the lino¬ 
type machine. In newspaper offices, where rapid composition 
is necessary, it has largely superseded hand-work in setting 
type. European governments for a long time endeavored 
to keep newspapers from reaching the common people, first 
by stamp duties and then by taxes on paper and advertise¬ 
ments. A cheap press was feared as a medium of democratic 
ideas which would undermine the authority of the upper classes. 
This system of “ taxing knowledge ” has disappeared in all 
progressive countries. The circulation of dailies and weeklies, 
instead of being restricted, is now fostered by the grant of low 
postal rates to newspapers. 

Many inventions in communication — the instantaneous 
camera, the cinematograph or motion picture, the phonograph, 


THE 



















Modern Industrialism 


6i 5 

the automatic piano — are so new that we have scarcely as yet 
begun to realize their possibilities. Properly directed, they will 
furnish the common people in civilized countries The new 
with an education in art, music, and the drama communi- 
which in former days could be secured only by per- catlon 
sons of wealth and leisure. Their great service promises to be 
that of democratizing culture, as cheap newspapers and books 
have democratized knowledge. 

173. Modern Industrialism 

The most important consequence of the Industrial Revolu¬ 
tion is the increased population of the leading nations. The 
figures for Europe show an increase from about increase of 
175,000,000 to over 400,000,000 during the nine- P°P ulation 
teenth century, and for the United States from about 5,000,000 
in 1800 to nearly 92,000,000 in 1910. The number of people 
who can be supported in a given region now depends less on 
the food which they raise, than on their production of raw 
materials and manufactured goods to exchange for food. Thus 
Belgium and Great Britain, with only a limited agriculture, 
support more inhabitants to the square mile than any other 
countries; while the population of such industrial states as New 
York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts far exceeds that of the 
agricultural commonwealths of the Middle West. There are, of 
course, certain agricultural countries (Egypt, the Ganges valley 
and delta in India, part of China) where the exceptionally rich 
soil, coupled with a very low standard of living on the part of the 
inhabitants, has also made possible an enormous growth of popu¬ 
lation within the last century. Little of the world is now entirely 
uninhabited; still less is permanently uninhabitable and un¬ 
likely to receive a considerable population in the future. Even 
sandy and alkaline deserts can be rendered productive through 
irrigation, while vast tracts of fertile territory, in both the 
temperate and tropical zones, can support many more people 
than at present. Europe as a whole has 106 inhabitants to 
the square mile, Asia 58, Africa n, America 9, and Oceania 
only 2. 


6 i6 


The Industrial Revolution 


The increased population of the leading industrial nations 
has been largely concentrated in cities. The rise of the factory 
Concentra- system and the improvement of facilities for 

tion of travel and transportation soon led to an unpre- 

population cedented urban development. Old cities grew 

with marvelous rapidity, while former villages and towns 
became transformed into new cities. At the opening of the 
nineteenth century western Europe was still mainly rural, 
as eastern Europe is to-day. Europe, as a whole, had fourteen 
cities of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants in 1800; 
in 1900 it had one hundred and forty such cities. London, 
which in 1800 contained under a million inhabitants, now 
counts seven millions within its borders; Paris contains five 
times as many people as shortly before the French Revolution; 
and Berlin has grown ten-fold since the reign of Frederick the 
Great. The development of provincial centers within the past 
century has been equally remarkable. Turning to the United 
States, it is enough to contrast the six cities of over eight thou¬ 
sand inhabitants in 1800 with the six hundred cities which, ac¬ 
cording to the census of 1910, had a population of ten thousand 
or more. About hah of the American people are now city 
dwellers. 

The Industrial Revolution is further chiefly responsible for 
the enormous emigration of Europeans during the past hundred 
years to lands beyond the seas. The United 
States received over 27,000,000 immigrants be¬ 
tween 1800 and 1910, nearly all coming from Europe. Mil¬ 
lions more went to the British colonies and to South America. 
The migration movement has been most marked since the middle 
of the nineteenth century, when the improvements in steam 
navigation so greatly multiplied and cheapened facilities for 
travel on the ocean. 

The increased wealth of the leading nations is another con¬ 
sequence of the Industrial Revolution. Modern machines 
Increase of are really non-human slaves working without wages 
wealth and without fatigue. One writer estimates that 

in the textile industries alone they accomplish what it would 


Emigration 







































































































































Modern Industrialism 617 

require fifty billion men and women to do without them. 
Statistics of government revenues and expenditures, imports 
and exports, income tax returns, deposits in savings banks, and 
assets of life insurance companies show how wealth has multi¬ 
plied, especially within recent years. Other indications are 
furnished by the increase in the annual production of coal, in 
the amount of iron ore mined annually, in railway construc¬ 
tion, and in the tonnage of merchant vessels. The enormous 
public loans, successfully floated during the World War, also 
reveal the resources now at the command of industrial 
peoples. 

Notwithstanding the creation of huge individual fortunes 
as the result of the Industrial Revolution, the general standard 
of living has been raised by the addition of in- Diffusion of 
numerable things — sugar, coffee, linen, cotton wealth 
goods, glass, china ware, wall paper, ready-made clothing, books, 
newspapers, pictures — which were once enjoyed only by a 
few wealthy persons. If the rich are undoubtedly getting 
richer, the poor are not getting poorer in western Europe and 
the United States. As a matter of fact, poverty is most 
acute in such thickly populated countries as Russia, India, 
and China, which modern industrialism has only begun to 
penetrate* 

The map of the occupations of mankind affords a summary 
view of the progress of the Industrial Revolution throughout 
the world. As far as Europe is concerned, we industriaii- 
see that the western part of the continent has been zatlon 
pretty thoroughly industrialized, except for such areas as 
western Ireland, northern Scotland, central Spain, southern 
Italy, the Alpine region, and the Scandinavian peninsula. 
The industrial development of Russia is limited to the western 
and southern parts of the country; that of the Balkan states 
is negligible. Large and growing manufacturing districts 
exist in India, China, Japan, on the-eastern coast of Australia, 
and in New Zealand. The manufactures of Africa and South 
America are too slight for representation on a small-scale map. 
In North America both Mexico and Canada have begun to 


6i8 


The Industrial Revolution 


share with the United States in the benefits of the Industrial 
Revolution. 


Studies 


i. Using material in encyclopedias, prepare reports for class presentation upon 
the following inventions and discoveries: (a) the bicycle; ( b ) the typewriter; 
( c ) lucifer matches; ( d ) illuminating gas; (e) electric lighting; (/) dynamite; 
and (g) photography. 2. For what are the following persons famous: Arkwright; 
Cartwright; Watt; Stephenson; Whitney; Fulton; Howe; Morse; Bell; Lang¬ 
ley; and Marconi? 3. Explain what is meant by the following: (a) capital; 

(b) capitalism; (c) domestic system; (d) factory system; and (e) division of 
labor. 4. “Since the middle of the eighteenth century changes have come to 
pass which have made civilized man rather nature’s conqueror than its drudge 
and prey.” Comment on this statement. 5. What is the difference between 
a tool and a machine? 6. Name in order the early inventions in the textile 
industry and explain the changes which each one produced. 7. Describe the 
construction and operation of (a) the “spinning jenny”; ( b ) the “mule”; and 

(c) the “flying shuttle.” 8. Has division of labor any disadvantages from the 
point of view of the worker? 9. What are Telford blocks? What is a macadam¬ 
ized road? 10. Enumerate some of the social and economic consequences of 
the wide use of the automobile in the United States. 11. “Of all inventions, 
the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge 
distance have done most for the civilization of our species.” Comment on this 
statement. 12. “Next to steam-locomotion, the telegraph is probably the 
most powerful mechanical agent invented for promoting the unification of the 
world.” Comment on this statement. 13. On the map facing page 616, 
indicate the principal uninhabited regions of the globe. 14. On the map facing 
this page locate the chief mining areas of the world. 



McCormick Reaper, 1834 

The reaper with a vibrating’cutter, as first patented by the inventor. 

















































































































CHAPTER XXIV 


ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 1 
174. Commerce 

A tremendous expansion of commerce followed the improve¬ 
ments in transportation and communication. Macadamized 
Commercial roads, inland and ship canals, ocean steamships, 
expansion and ra ilroads reduced freight rates to a mere 
fraction of those once charged, while the telegraph, telephone, 
cheap postage, and newspapers made possible the rapid spread 
of information relating to crops and markets. It is estimated 
that the commerce of the world (including even backward 
countries) increased over twelve hundred per cent in the nine¬ 
teenth century. Rapid as was the growth of the world’s 
population during this period, commerce grew much faster; 
so that the average share of each human being in international 
trade amounted in 1900 to a sum six times that in 1800. During 
the first two decades of the twentieth century commercial 
expansion has been on a still more colossal scale. 

Great Britain has long stood first among commercial countries. 
This is not surprising, in view of the fact that the Industrial 
British Revolution began in Great Britain and that for 

commerce many years she alone had large quantities of manu¬ 
factured goods for export. Great Britain’s success as a colonial 
power likewise fostered her commerce; the bulk of the trade 
of British colonies and dependencies is with the mother country. 
The British Empire, as a whole, controls a half of the gold, a 
third of the wool, a third of the coal, a fourth of the cotton, 
a fifth of the wheat, and a sixth of the pig iron annually pro¬ 
duced throughout the world. It should be noted, also, that the 

1 Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 24, “Communist Manifesto, 1848”; 
No. 25, “Declaration of Paris, 1856.” 

619 


620 


Economic and Social Progress 


maritime supremacy of Great Britain has protected her sea- 
borne trade in time of war, besides furnishing ample facilities 
in ships, docks, and sailors for trade at all times. Great Britain 
imports most of her foodstuffs and raw materials and exports 
chiefly manufactures, including textiles (cottons, woolens, 
linens), machinery, leather goods, chemicals, and pottery. 

The three-fold increase of Germany’s foreign trade between 
1871 and 1914 was part and parcel of the astounding indus- 
German trial development which followed her unification, 

commerce Germany on the eve of the World War ranked 

next to Great Britain among commercial nations. German 
imports were mostly foodstuffs to supply the rapidly growing 
population and raw materials for the expanding factories 
of the empire. The exports were mainly manufactures, coal, 
and beet sugar. 

France in 1914 stood third among European countries in 
volume of foreign trade. The French people excel in the 
French creation of such artistic luxuries as millinery, 

commerce laces, gloves, perfumes, and fine china, and these, 
together with silks and wines, comprise the bulk of their ex¬ 
ports. The low, flat coast and few harbors of France have 
not encouraged the growth of a merchant marine. The French 
are obliged to depend largely upon the British, Norwegians, 
and other neighbors for shipping. 

The foreign trade of the United States during the nineteenth 
century remained small in proportion to the wealth and popu- 
Commerce Nation of the country. So great and so varied 
of the United were the resources of the United States that the 
American people could obtain by internal trade 
nearly everything they needed. Were our commerce inter¬ 
rupted, we should lack coffee, tea, sugar, and tropical fruits, 
but neither the necessaries of life nor the raw materials for 
our principal industries. The United States is more nearly 
independent, industrially, than any other leading country. 
Nevertheless, as the American people approach economic 
maturity, commerce becomes increasingly important as sup¬ 
plying a foreign market for the surplus products of our mines, 


Commercial Organization 621 

farms, and factories. The growth of American commerce has 
therefore been exceptionally rapid within recent decades, 
especially the increase in the exports of manufactures. Before 
1914 only 10 per cent of our commerce was carried under our 
own flag, Great Britain, Germany, and other European coun¬ 
tries supplying ships for all the rest. The recent development 
of American shipping to repair the losses wrought by the 
German submarine campaign is one of the most significant 
economic consequences of the World War. 

175. Commercial Organization 

The organization of commerce shows wonderful changes 
since the Middle Ages. There is now so steady a flow of com¬ 
modities from producers through wholesalers and „ , 

. ® . Exchanges 

retailers to consumers that the old system of 

weekly markets and annual fairs is all but obsolete. Dis¬ 
tinctively modern are produce exchanges for trade in the great 
staples (wheat, cotton, wool, sugar, etc.) and stock exchanges 
for buying and selling the stocks and bonds of corporations. 
Speculation on the exchanges confers a benefit upon commerce 
by safeguarding producers against the risks of sharp fluctua¬ 
tions in prices. When, however, it results in an artificial scarcity 
of commodities or securities through “ corners ” and “ squeezes,” 
it becomes an economic evil. The difficulty in practice is to 
draw the line between legitimate speculation and simple 
gambling. 

The system of insurance is altogether an economic benefit, 
in view of the risks involved in most commercial undertakings. 
For a small payment the farmer insures his grow- insurance 
ing crop against hail or windstorm; the merchant, companies 
his stock against fire; the shipowner, his vessel against loss at 
sea. Marine insurance arose in medieval Italy, but for centuries 

has centered at Lloyds in London. 1 The first fire insurance 

1 Lloyd’s was originally a coffee house of seventeenth-century London, where 
shipowners and insurance brokers gathered for business or gossip. The name now 
applies to an association which not only writes marine insurance, but also collects 
and publishes information with respect to shipping throughout the world. 


622 


Economic and Social Progress 

policies were written in London after the Great Fire in the 
reign of Charles II. Other forms of business insurance origi¬ 
nated much more recently. The present tendency seems to be 
to insure against every possible contingency which can be 
foreseen. 

A commercial bank, as distinguished from a savings bank or 

a trust company, may be defined as an institution which deals 

in money and credit. It attracts the deposits of 
Banks , . . . . 

many persons, thus gaming control of enormous 

sums available for loans to manufacturers and merchants. 
Banks do not increase the amount of capital (factory buildings, 
machinery, raw materials, etc.) in a community, but they help 
to put it at the disposal of active business men; in other 
words, banks make capital fluid. Furthermore, bank checks, 
drafts, and foreign bills of exchange provide a cheap and elastic 
substitute for money. It is possible through their use to dis¬ 
charge a large volume of indebtedness without the transfer of 
cash. 

The earliest medieval banks were the private establishments 
of moneyed men in Italian cities. Venice and Genoa sub- 
Deveiopment sequently founded public or state banks, and during 
of banking the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries similar 
institutions arose in many European capitals. The Bank of 
England owes its origin to the financial difficulties of the British 
government, during the reign of William and Mary, in carrying 
on an expensive war with Louis XIV. 1 The revenues of the 
country at that time were small, and the public credit was weak. 
The Bank was formed in 1694 by a group of subscribers, prin¬ 
cipally London merchants, who made a loan to the government 
and received, in turn, a charter granting them the right to 
accept deposits and lend out money at interest. Although 
essentially a private institution, the Bank acts as the chief 
depository of the public money and the agent of the Treasury 
in many financial operations. It has also become the monetary 
center of both the United Kingdom and the British Empire. 
The Bank of France was the creation of Napoleon Bona- 

1 See page 185. 



























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COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT 
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Commercial Organization 623 

parte. 1 The Imperial Bank of Germany (Reichsbank) came 
into existence only in 1876. 2 All these great European banks, 
as well as the national banks of the United States, have the 
privilege of issuing redeemable notes which circulate in place 
of gold. 

In spite of the extensive use of checks and bank notes, the 
growth of commerce continues to absorb immense quantities of 
gold, the money metal. The supply has kept The gold 
pace with the demand. The mines of California, supply 
Australia, South Africa, Alaska, and other countries produced 
in the second half of the nineteenth century nine times as much 
gold as had been produced between 1800 and 1850. 

The supply of silver increased during the nineteenth century 
far in excess of the demand. Its declining value led the principal 
commercial states to diminish or suspend silver The gold 
coinage. Great Britain in 1816 abandoned the standard 
double or bimetallic standard and adopted the single gold 
standard. Her example has since been followed by the Con¬ 
tinental nations, the British colonies, Japan, the South American 
republics, and, in 1900, the United States. China and Mexico 
are the only important countries which remain on a silver basis. 

Economists believe that the great output of gold in the 
’fifties and ’sixties of the last century resulted in an average 
increase of the prices of commodities equal to Gold and 
at least twenty per cent. The prodigious enlarge- P nces 
ment of the gold supply within recent years has also been a 
cause of the steadily rising price level since about 1896 in the 
United States, Great Britain, Germany, and other countries. 
It is therefore important to note just how new supplies of gold 
operate on prices. Gold converted into money constitutes 
purchasing power. Additional supplies of it in circulation 
mean an increased demand for goods, which in turn causes a 
rise of prices. Wages also tend to advance, because more 
labor is required to produce the additional commodities de¬ 
manded. Since^salaries usually rise more slowly than wages, 
the salaried class suffers during a period of rapidly increasing 

1 See page 332. 2 See page 488. 



624 


Economic and Social Progress 


prices. The same is true of all persons having fixed incomes 
from bonds and similar investments. 

The almost universal use of gold as the standard of value 
facilitates the creation of a world market for money. Capital- 
International ists and bankers in progressive countries are thus 
finance enabled to supply funds for investment in less 
progressive countries. Statisticians estimate that up to 1914 
not less than twenty billion dollars had been invested abroad 
by Great Britain, about half of it in her colonies and about 
half in foreign lands. French investments in Russia and 
other countries totaled about ten billion dollars, while those 
of Germany abroad also reached an impressively high figure. 
All through the nineteenth century the United States was a 
debtor nation, owing to the immense sums borrowed for the 
development of American railroads, mines, farms, and factories. 
This situation changed with startling suddenness during the 
World War, when the Allied nations purchased in the United 
States enormous amounts of food, raw materials and muni¬ 
tions. Not only has the United States wiped off its indebted¬ 
ness to Europe; it has now made Europe its debtor. Con¬ 
sequently, New York, rather than London or Paris, tends to 
become the world’s money market and center of international 
finance. 

Commercial progress has been frequently interrupted during 
the past century by periods of depression called crises. They 
are a product of the Industrial Revolution. Aris¬ 
ing in one country, perhaps as a result of bad 
banking, over-issue of paper money, speculation, unwise in¬ 
vestments, or failure of crops, they tend to spread widely until 
all civilized countries are involved. For instance, the crisis 
of 1857 started in the United States and that of 1873, in Austria. 

What happens during a crisis is familiar to every one. Capi¬ 
talists refuse to invest in new railroads, factories, and other 
Phenomena undertakings; bankers will not lend money; 
of crises merchants, unable to borrow, go into bankruptcy; 
and manufacturers, receiving fewer orders, either reduce their 
output or shut down their plants. Then ensues a period of 


Crises 


Commercial Policies 


625 


“ hard times,” with low prices, low wages, much unemploy¬ 
ment, and widespread destitution. The wave of prosperity sets 
in again, eventually, and times again become “ good.” Crises 
have occurred at intervals of about ten or eleven years since 
1800, but recently with lessening severity. They may cease 
altogether as modern commerce becomes still more efficient. 


176. Commercial Policies 


Many obstacles impeding the exchange of goods in the 
Middle Ages disappeared in modern times, especially after the 
French Revolution. The state police, which was Commercial 
everywhere organized on the model of the French freedom 
gendarmerie , suppressed highway robbery. Piracy, once so 
common, became obsolete in the era of modern steam navi¬ 
gation. The burdensome tolls imposed by feudal lords on 
transportation and travel were 
no longer exacted, now that 
feudalism itself had died out. 

A movement also began to re¬ 
duce the high duties levied by 
every European nation on im¬ 
ports and exports. 

One nation went still further 
in the nineteenth century and 
adopted free trade. Free trade 
Great Britain, we 
have learned, en¬ 
joyed by 1815 a virtual monop¬ 
oly in most lines of industry. 

Having no reason to fear the 
competition of foreign manufac¬ 
turers, it was to her advantage 
to lower or abolish the duties 
on imports, especially those on raw materials. The Younger 
Pitt, influenced by the writings of Adam Smith, began the work 
of tariff reform; Sir Robert Peel continued it in the ’forties; 
and Gladstone completed it. Since i860 Great Britain has been 


in Great 
Britain 



Sir Robert Peel 

After a painting by John Linnell in the 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 



626 


Economic and Social Progress 

a free-trade nation. She imposes no restrictions whatever on 
exports and levies import duties only on a few articles, includ¬ 
ing coffee, tea, tobacco, alcoholic 
liquors, and sugar. Even these 
are for revenue not for protec¬ 
tion. They do not encourage 
the production at home of any¬ 
thing which can be produced 
more cheaply abroad. “ To buy 
in the cheapest market and sell 
in the dearest” is the British 
policy. 

Another feature of the free- 
trade movement in Great Britain 

Repeal of was the repeal of 

the Corn the Corn 1 Laws. 

Laws, 1846 These laws re¬ 

stricted or entirely prohibited the 
importation of wheat or other grains, in the interest of British 
farmers and landlords. Manu¬ 
facturers, on the other hand, 
objected to legislation which 
made food dear for the working 
classes. In 1839 an Anti-Corn 
Law League was organized at 
Manchester, under the able 
leadership of Richard Cobden 
and John Bright. The success 
of its agitation was hastened 
by a partial failure of crops in 
England and the Potato 
Famine 2 in Ireland, occur¬ 
rences which raised food prices 
enormously and caused acute 

1 “Corn” to an Englishman means wheat; to a Scotsman or an Irishman, oats; 
and to an American, maize, or Indian com. 

2 See page 439- 



John Bright 



Richard Cobden 

After a painting by Lowes Dickinson 
in 1861. 


Commercial Policies 


627 

distress in both countries. The Corn Laws were finally repealed 
in 1846. Since then Great Britain has secured the bulk of 
her food abroad, from the fertile wheat areas of the United 
States and the British colonies, and has paid for it with the 
products of her mines and factories. 

The Navigation Acts 1 were repealed three years later, after 
having been in operation for nearly two centuries. Foreign 
ships were henceforth allowed to compete with Repeal of the 
those of Great Britain in the carrying trade. Navigation 
Competition has resulted in lower freight rates Acts * 1849 
and consequently in cheaper food for the British people. 

The free-trade movement spread to the Continent, where it 
led at first to a general lowering of tariff walls. In the last 
quarter of the nineteenth century, however, Protection on 
France, Germany, and other countries returned the Continent 
to the policy of protection. Rightly or wrongly, they saw in 
protection the means of building up their own “ infant in¬ 
dustries,” in order to supply the home market and even to 
compete with Great Britain in the markets of the world. The 
triumph of protectionism thus formed a sequel to the intense 
nationalism which had developed in Europe. The economic 
cooperation of the Allies during the World War and their 
continued cooperation under the League of Nations may lead 
to a reaction in favor of freer commercial intercourse between 
them. 

The first American tariff was framed in 1789. It levied a 
few small protective duties. The United States adopted 
protection on an extensive scale only in 1816, protection in 
as a means of keeping alive the industries which the United 
had sprung up in the country when the second 
war with England stopped all imports of foreign goods. Later 
tariffs have generally raised duties, except for a few decades 
before the Civil War. In following a protective policy, the 
United States thus ranges itself with the Continental nations 
rather than with Great Britain. 

Much progress has been made during the past century in 

1 See page 264. 


628 Economic and Social Progress 

the internationalization of important rivers which separate or 
traverse two or more countries. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 
decided that the Rhine should be freely open to the commerce 
Internation- of all nations. The Congress of Paris in 1856 
alization made a similar stipulation concerning the Danube. 
A few years later Holland renounced her former privilege of 
levying tolls on the Scheldt, an arrangement which had fettered 
Belgian commerce through Antwerp. The Peace Conference 
in 1919 internationalized the Elbe and Oder rivers, both of 
which rise in the new state of Czecho-Slovakia and provide 
outlets for its foreign trade. The principle of free navigation 
has also been extended to inland seas such as the Black Sea 
and the Baltic. Before the World War Germany treated the 
Kiel Canal as an inland waterway, denying to other nations 
its free and equal use. This gave her an advantage over her 
competitors, since the canal affords the shortest route between 
the North Sea and the Baltic. The peace treaty with Ger¬ 
many provides that the canal shall henceforth be opened with¬ 
out restriction to the mercantile marine of every country. 
The same rule has always applied to the Suez and Panama 
canals. 

We saw above 1 that one of the causes of the War of 1812- 
1814 was the irritation felt in the United States at the action of 
Freedom of Great Britain in searching American ships for 
the seas deserters from the royal navy. The peace treaty 
between the two countries said nothing about the right of search 
and impressment of deserting seamen, but the protest of the 
United States proved to be none the less effective. It is now 
an accepted principle of international law that in time of peace 
a merchant vessel remains under the jurisdiction of the country 
to which it belongs and whose flag it carries; consequently 
any visitation, molestation, or detention of such a ship by 
force, or by threat of force, constitutes an unfriendly act. 
The general acknowledgment of this principle by maritime 
nations makes the seas really free to all commerce in time of 
peace. 


1 See page 586. 


Agriculture and Land Tenure 629 

Much has been done, also, to protect commerce in time of 
war. The great powers assembled at Paris in 1856 to conclude 
the Crimean War took the opportunity to put The Declara _ 
forth the following Declaration: 1 “ Privateering tion of Paris, 
is, and remains abolished; 2. The neutral flag 1856 
covers enemy’s goods, with the exception of contraband of war; 
3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, 
are not liable to capture under the enemy’s flag; 4. Block¬ 
ades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, 
maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the 
coast of the enemy.” All maritime countries of any importance, 
except the United States, adhered to this momentous Declara¬ 
tion. The United States declined to concur, unless enemy 
property (save contraband of war) were also exempted from 
capture at sea. The adoption of such a rule would put private 
property at sea on a level with private property on the land , 
in case of war. The question has been much discussed during 
recent years, without, however, obtaining recognition in in¬ 
ternational law. 

177. Agriculture and Land Tenure 

The agricultural system of the Middle Ages, with its wasteful 
“ open fields ” and fallow lands, its backward methods, and its 
scanty yield, began to be revolutionized with the Agriculture 
approach of modern times. The Dutch were in the 
the first scientific farmers, and from them English eighteenth 
farmers learned many secrets of tillage. Deeper 
plowing, more thorough pulverization of the ground, more 
diligent manuring, the shifting or rotation of crops from field 
to field, so that the soil would not have to lie fallow every 
third year, and the introduction of new crops, including turnips, 
clover, and rye, were some of the improvements which doubled 
the yield of agricultural land. The weight of cattle and sheep 
was also increased by half through careful selection in breeding. 
It is significant of the revived interest in agriculture at the close 
of the eighteenth century that George III contributed articles 
1 Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. ii, No. 271. 


630 


Economic and Social Progress 


nineteenth 

century 


to a farm journal and that Washington, in his quiet retreat 
at Mount Vernon, invented a plow and a rotary seed drill. 

The improvements in agriculture since 1800 have extended 
to every progressive country. Machinery now replaces the 
, . ancient scythe, sickle, flail, and other implements, 

in the One machine, of American invention, not only 

reaps the grain, but threshes it, winnows it, and 
delivers it into sacks at a single operation. Ac¬ 
cording to a conservative estimate, farm machinery enables 

fifty men to accomplish 
what would require the 
labor of five hundred men 
using hand tools only. 
The introduction of cheap 
artificial fertilizers makes 
profitable the cultivation 
of poor lands formerly al¬ 
lowed to lie idle. The 
advance of engineering 
science leads to the recla¬ 
mation of marshes and 
arid wastes. Finally, 
steam navigation allows a 
country to draw supplies 
of wheat, meat, and other 
foodstuffs from the most 
distant regions, with the 
result that the specter of 
famine, so common in the 
Middle Ages, has well-nigh disappeared from the modern 
world. 

The “ open-field ” system of cultivation, whereby the same 
person tilled many small strips in different parts of the manor, 
was so wasteful of time and labor that medieval 
farmers began to surrender their scattered strips 
for compact holdings which could be inclosed with hedges or 
fences and cultivated independently. This inclosure move- 



Inclosures in England in the 
Eighteenth Century 

Horizontal shading — Partially closed fields in 1700. 
Vertical shading — Mainly open fields in 1700. 


Inclosures 














































Agriculture and Land Tenure 631 

ment continued in western Europe all through the modern 
period, until in the nineteenth century the old “ open fields ” 
had been practically abandoned in favor of separate farms and 
individual tillage. 

Inclosures meant better farming everywhere, but in Great 
Britain they also helped to create the large estates so character¬ 
istic of that country. The lord of the manor, 

... Disappear- 

not satisfied with inclosing his demesne lands, ance of the 

often managed to inclose the meadows, which British 

. . . yeomanry 

had been previously enjoyed by the peasants in 
common, as pasturage for their livestock. It was consequently 
harder than ever for the small farmer to support his family 
on his petty holding. Moreover, he did not have sufficient 
capital to invest in necessary improvements and the new agri¬ 
cultural machinery rapidly coming into use, while the decay 
of the domestic system 1 deprived him of a supplementary 
income from household manufacturing. Under such circum¬ 
stances he was often forced to sell out to a large landowner. 
Many of the dispossessed farmers drifted to neighboring towns 
and became factory operatives; many went abroad to the 
British colonies or the United States; still others remained on 
the land as agricultural laborers working for a daily wage. 
The result was the almost complete disappearance, by the middle 
of the nineteenth century, of the old British yeomanry, the 
class of peasant proprietors who for hundreds of years had been 
the strength of the state. 

Ten thousand persons own two-thirds of all England and 
Wales; seventeen thousand persons own nine-tenths of Scot¬ 
land. Each landlord parcels out his property British 
among a number of tenant “ farmers,” who work landlordism 
the soil themselves, with the aid of the agricultural day laborers 
above mentioned. Much good farming land is devoted to 
game preserves, parks, lawns, and gardens. These open 
spaces, with the stately mansions of the nobles and country 
gentry, give to rural England a charm which no other country 
knows. 


1 See page 602. 


632 


Economic and Social Progress 


Nevertheless, British economists and statesmen have long 
felt that, as a mere matter of national safety, Great Britain 
Agrarian ought to raise more of her own food supply, 

reform in Were the country effectively blockaded in time 

Great Britain Q £ war ^ t h e starvation of its crowded industrial 
population would soon result. As a result of the World War, 
millions of acres formerly withdrawn from cultivation were 
put under the plow. It is not likely that they will be allowed 
to return to unproductive uses. Efforts have also begun to 
break up the large estates by such heavy taxes that it will be 
no longer profitable to hold them. Air. Lloyd George, as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, began a war on landlordism before 
1914, and since then the enormous increase of taxation caused 
by the war has resulted in many of the great properties being 
broken up and placed upon the market. There seems reason 
to believe that Great Britain may yet become what Ireland 
under the Land Purchase Acts 1 has already become — a country 
of small farmers. 

A considerable part of the agricultural land belonged to the 
French peasants even before the Revolution. 2 Their posses- 
French sions i ncrease d i n the revolutionary era, as the 

peasant pro- result of legislation confiscating the estates of the 
prietorships Crown, the Church, and the emigrant nobles. 3 
Three million persons own farms under twenty-five acres in 
extent; seven hundred and fifty thousand persons own the rest 
of the agricultural land in holdings running up to four hundred 
acres. About eighty per cent of all holdings are cultivated 
by their owners. These statistics show that little farm tenancy 
exists in France. It is emphatically a country of small but 
prosperous and contented farmers. In no European state 
would a socialistic revolution, involving the abolition of private 
ownership of land, have fewer chances of success. 

The agrarian reforms of the French Revolution spread to 
Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, western Germany, and northern 
Italy, where peasant proprietorships are common. They are 
rare in much of Spain and in southern Italy and Sicily. Cen- 

1 See page 440. 2 See page 281. 3 See pages 310 and 332. 


Agriculture and Land Tenure 633 

tral and eastern Europe remained under the medieval manorial 

system throughout the nineteenth century. The land was 

owned by a few noble families and was worked La 

by peasants, either as tenants or day laborers, in other 

Outside of Russia proper, there were five of these Continental 
, . , . , . . ^ countries 

landed aristocracies in 1914: in eastern Germany 
(Brandenburg, Pomerania, West Prussia, East Prussia), where 
serfdom disappeared only in the Napoleonic era; in Austria- 
Hungary, where it disappeared during the disorders of 1848- 
1849; i n the Baltic provinces controlled by nobles of German 
origin called Baltic barons; in Poland and Lithuania; and in 
Rumania. The revolutionary movements since 1914 promise 
to destroy the land monopoly of the aristocrats in all these 
countries. There will arise, instead, a new democratic society 
of peasant proprietors. This triumph of the small land owner 
in central and eastern Europe must be accounted one of the 
most important economic results of the World War. 

The abolition of Russian serfdom by Alexander II in 1858- 
1861 1 was followed by measures establishing a new system of 
land tenure. The nobles were required to sell a Land tenure 
portion of their estates to the peasants, about half in Russia 
of the agricultural area of European Russia thus changing 
hands. Except in certain districts where individual owner¬ 
ship prevailed, the farming land was intrusted to the entire 
village (mir) for redistribution at intervals among the inhabi¬ 
tants. All that the peasant really possessed in his own right 
was a house and a garden plot. The Russian Revolution of 
1917 broke up the mir economy and also enabled the peasants 
to appropriate the estates of the nobles. It appears that the 
Bolsheviki have been obliged to countenance this procedure, 
in order to win the support of the peasantry. If Russia adopts 
complete individual ownership of land, it will mark a significant 
step in the progress of that country, where about nine-tenths 
of the population live wholly or mainly by agriculture. Russia 
may develop into one of the most stable of nations because its 
people have their feet on the ground, their own ground. 

1 See page 508. 


634 


Economic and Social Progress 


178. The Labor Movement 

The craft guilds, which modern Europe inherited from the 
Middle Ages, gradually became obsolete after the Industrial 
Disappear- Revolution. They were out of place in a world 
ance of the of whirling machinery, crowded factories, free 
craft guilds competition, and the separation of labor and 
capital. Few of them in Great Britain survived the eight¬ 
eenth century. In France it required a decree of the National 
Assembly to end their existence. Those in Germany did not 
completely disappear until late in the nineteenth century. 

As contrasted with craft guilds, trade unions are combinations 
of wage-earners to maintain or improve the conditions under 
Rise of trade which they labor. These associations began to 
unions appear in Great Britain between 1700 and 1800, 

especially after the domestic system gave way to the factory 
system. Under the new conditions of industry, an employer 
could not know many of his employees personally; their re¬ 
lations, henceforth, tended to become cold-blooded and im¬ 
personal. At the same time, the workers in any one establish¬ 
ment or trade, being thrown more closely together, came to 
realize their common interests and to appreciate the need for 
organization. 

The unions immediately encountered opposition. The Com¬ 
mon Law treated them as conspiracies in restraint of trade and 
Trade unions hence as illegal. Moreover, the employers used 
prohibited their influence in Parliament to secure the passage 
of a long series of acts designed to prevent what were styled 
“ unlawful combinations of workmen.” The last of these acts, 
passed in 1800, even provided the penalty of imprisonment at 
hard labor for persons who combined with others to raise wages, 
shorten hours, or in any way control the conditions of industry. 

Agitation by trade-union leaders induced Parliament in 
1825 to repeal all the Combination Acts and to replace them 
Trade unions by a new and more liberal statute. Laborers 
legalized might now lawfully meet together for the purpose 
of agreeing on the rate of wages or the number of hours which 


The Labor Movement 635 

they would work, as long as the agreement concerned only 
those who were present at the meeting. This qualification was 
removed a number of years later. Finally, the Trade Union 
Act of 1875 declared that nothing done by a group of laborers 
should be considered illegal unless it was also illegal when done 
by a single person. The act thus gave the working classes the 
full right of combination for which they had long been striv¬ 
ing. It has been called the Magna Carta of trade unionism. 

The trade unions of Great Britain have made much progress 
within recent years. In 1914 they enrolled nearly four million 
members, including factory operatives, railway British trade 
workers, coal miners, and agricultural laborers, unionism 
They send their representatives to Parliament and t0 “ day 
exercise great influence on labor legislation. Their officers also 
frequently serve as factory inspectors. Many unions enjoy 
a considerable income, which goes to support members who are 
temporarily out of work, sick, disabled, or infirm. Where the 
unions control an industry and can dictate terms of employ¬ 
ment, they often practice limitation of output, that is, restrict 
what each worker does to less than he is capable of doing. 
The purpose of this is to prevent overdriving by employers 
and at the same time to create as many jobs as possible for 
trade unionists. 

Trade unions exist in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and 
other Continental countries. They are modeled upon the 
British organizations, but do not equal them in Trade union _ 
numbers, wealth, or influence. Many have a ism on the 
political character, being closely connected with Contment 
socialist parties. In general, Continental workingmen rely 
for improvement in their condition rather upon State action 
than upon collective bargaining with their employers. 

The organization of American trade unions began early in 
the nineteenth century, but their great and rapid growth has 
taken place since the Civil War. Probably about Trade union _ 
fifteen per cent of the male wage-earners belong ism in the 
to them. While this may seem a small proportion, United States 
it must be remembered that their membership consists chiefly 


636 Economic and Social Progress 

of skilled laborers. Most of the trade unions are affiliated with 
the American Federation of Labor, which was founded in 1886. 

The cooperative movement also started in Great Britain. 
There are in that country a large number of societies, open to 
workingmen on the payment of a small fee, and 

Cooperation 0 r / . . . .. 

selling goods to members at prices considerably 

lower than those charged by private concerns. Members share 
in the profits in accordance with the amount of their purchases. 
The success of cooperation in retailing has brought about its 
extension to wholesaling and even to manufacturing and bank¬ 
ing. Similar societies are numerous on the Continent. They 
have made little headway in the United States, with such 
conspicuous exceptions as mutual life insurance companies and 
building and loan associations. 

179 . Government Regulation of Industry 

Improvement in the lot of the working classes has taken place 
not only through the activities of trade unions, cooperative 
Evils of societies, and other voluntary associations, but 
the factory also by legislation. The need for government 
regulation of industry very soon became apparent. 
The crowded factories were unsanitary. Hours of labor were 
too long. Wages were on the starvation level. Furthermore, 
the use of machinery encouraged the employment of women 
and children, for whose labor there had been previously little 
demand outside the home. Their excessive toil amid unhealthy 
surroundings often developed disease and deformity or brought 
premature death. Much excuse existed for the passionate 
words of one reformer that the slave trade was “ mercy com¬ 
pared to the factory system.” 

These evils were naturally most prominent in Great Britain, 
where the Industrial Revolution began. Little effort was made 
at first to remedy them. The working classes 
alone ’^policy exercised no political influence; indeed, by the 
Combination Acts they had been prohibited from 
forming trade unions for their protection. Statesmen, instead 
of meeting the situation by remedial legislation, adopted the 


Government Regulation of Industry 637 


laissez-faire , or “let-alone” policy. 1 The government, they 
declared, should keep its hands off industry. The greatest 
good to the greatest number could only be secured when “ eco¬ 
nomic laws ” of supply and demand were allowed to de¬ 
termine the wages and conditions of employment, just as they 
determined the prices, quantity, and quality of commodities 
produced. 

“ Let alone ” naturally became the watchword of selfish 
employers, to whose avarice and cruelty it gave full rein. Yet 
there were also hu- Early labor 
mane employers legislation 
who felt that the State ought to 
protect those who could not pro¬ 
tect themselves. One was Sir 
Robert Peel, father of the dis¬ 
tinguished statesman of the 
same name. 2 He succeeded in 
securing the enactment of the 
first British factory act (1802). 

It prohibited the binding-out for 
labor of pauper children under 
nine years of age, restricted their 
working hours to twelve a day, 
and forbade night work. This 
measure applied only to cotton 
factories. Little more was done 
for thirty-one years. During 
this time several philanthropists, among whom Lord Ashley, 
afterwards earl of Shaftesbury, had the greatest influence, took 
up the cause of the oppressed workers and on the floor of Par¬ 
liament, on the platform, in the pulpit, and in the newspapers 
waged a campaign to arouse the public to the need for ad¬ 
ditional legislation. 3 The result was the passage in 1833 of 
an act which applied to all textile factories and provided 
for their regular inspection by public officials. In 1842 Lord 



The Earl of Shaftesbury 

After a bust by Sir J. E. Boehm, in the 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 


1 See pages 285-286. 


See page 625. 


Read Mrs. Browning’s The Cry of the Children. 



638 Economic and Social Progress 

Ashley, whose life was devoted to philanthropy and social re¬ 
form, carried through Parliament an act forbidding the em¬ 
ployment in mines of women and children. Five years later 
Parliament took the still more radical step of passing the 
Ten-Hour Act, which limited the labor of women and chil¬ 
dren in textile factories to ten hours a day. This measure be¬ 
came a law only after the fiercest opposition on the part of 
manufacturers, but it proved so beneficial that henceforth the 
desirability of factory legislation was generally admitted. 

Government regulation of industry now began to become a 
reality. Mines, bakeries, laundries, docks, retail and wholesale 
British labor s ^ops, and many other establishments were grad- 
legisiation ually brought under control. At the present 
time the State restricts the employment of children 
so that they may not be deprived of an education. It limits 
the hours of labor, not only of children and women in most 
industries, but also of men in mines and factories. It requires 
employers to install safety appliances in their plants and to 
take all other precautions necessary for the preservation of 
the lives, limbs, and health of their employees. Recent legis¬ 
lation provides for the establishment of wage boards in certain 
“ sweated ” trades, where men and women work long hours 
for starvation pay. These boards, representing employees, 
employers, and the government, have power to fix a minimum 
wage — the lowest wage consistent with health and efficiency —• 
and to forbid the payment of anything less, except to appren¬ 
tices. The principle of the minimum wage has also been ex¬ 
tended to miners and agricultural laborers. The government 
supports employment bureaus or labor exchanges, in order that 
the idle may find work. A national insurance act, effective 
since 1912, provides for the compulsory insurance of nearly 
all employees against sickness and loss of employment. An 
old-age pension law passed in 1908 gives British subjects 
who have reached seventy years of age and who receive an in¬ 
come not exceeding £31, 10 d. (about $150) a year, a maximum 
pension of 55. (about $1.25) weekly. It is now proposed that 
every citizen of the United Kingdom, irrespective of his income, 


Government Regulation of Industry 639 

shall be qualified to draw a pension of 105. a week, upon reach¬ 
ing the required age. 

The labor legislation of France, Belgium, Holland, Austria, 
and the Scandinavian states compares favorably with that of 
Great Britain. In no Continental country has Labor legis _ 
it gone farther than in Germany. Bismarck lation on the 
gave it his powerful support, in order to check the Continent 
spread of socialism. Germany has laws establishing a maximum 
number of working hours, limiting child and female labor, and 
providing a system of workingmen’s insurance against accidents, 
sickness, incapacity, and old age. These laws now affect as 
many as twenty million people, or a third of the German popu¬ 
lation. 

The need for labor legislation has been felt less acutely in 
the United States than in Europe. One reason for this is the 
fact that American workingmen enjoy higher American 
wages and better conditions of employment than labor 
workingmen abroad. Another reason is found in le s islatlon 
the comparatively late development of the factory system in 
the United States. Labor laws, when passed, are often de¬ 
clared unconstitutional by state and federal courts, as interfer¬ 
ing with freedom of contract or as being class legislation. In 
spite of this obstacle, the movement for the legal protection of 
labor has made much progress within recent years, especially 
in New England and the states of the Middle West. 

The youthful commonwealths of Australia and New Zealand, 
unhampered by tradition, are trying a number of interesting 
experiments in government regulation of industry. Australasian 
Both countries give compensation to workingmen labor legisia- 
injured by accidents and old-age pensions to poor tlon 
people. New Zealand, in addition, provides fire, life, and ac¬ 
cident insurance, conducts postal savings banks, rents model 
homes to workingmen, and makes arbitration of labor disputes 
compulsory, in order to do away with strikes. If it turns out 
that under such paternalism more people are free and happy 
than under the individualism which prevails in the United 
States and even in Great Britain, then Australia and New 


640 Economic and Social Progress 

Zealand will have set an example to the rest of the world; if 
it is found that too much public regulation cramps private 
enterprise and takes away the incentive to industry, they will 
have warned the rest of the world off a dangerous course. 
But all this legislation is too recent for final judgment to be 
pronounced upon it. 

There has been a growing movement within recent years 
to secure concerted action by the various nations in the interest 
International die working classes. The movement received 
labor official recognition at the Peace Conference in 

legislation 1919. The Peace Treaty with Germany estab¬ 
lishes a permanent International Labor Office, under the League 
of Nations, and provides for annual international labor con¬ 
ferences to discuss needed legislation and recommend it to 
the different governments. The first conference met at Wash¬ 
ington in 1919, and the second met at Geneva in 1920. Like 
the League of Nations of which it forms a part, this new labor 
machinery has only begun to function, but it promises to be¬ 
come an agency of enormous usefulness. 

The Peace Conference also incorporated in the Peace Treaty 
a set of nine principles for regulating labor conditions. 
Labor The principles may be summarized as follows: 

principles Labor not to be regarded merely as a com¬ 

modity or article of commerce; (2) Right of association for 
all purposes by the employed as well as by the employers; 
(3) Payment of a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable 
standard of life; (4) Adoption of an eight-hour day or a forty- 
eight hour week; (5) Adoption of a weekly day of rest, which 
should include Sunday wherever practicable; (6) Abolition of 
child labor, and such restrictions on the labor of young 
persons as shall insure their education and proper physical 
development; (7) Equal remuneration of men and'women for 
work of equal value; (8) Equitable treatment of all workers 
in each country; (9) Enforcement of all laws and regulations 
for the protection of the employed. “ Without claiming that 
these methods and principles are either complete or final, the 
High Contracting Parties are of opinion that they are well 


Public Ownership 641 

fitted to guide the policy of the League of Nations; and that, if 
adopted by the industrial communities who are members of the 
League, and safeguarded in practice by an adequate system 
of inspection, they will confer lasting benefits upon the wage 
earners of the world.” 

180 . Public Ownership 

The modern State, in all civilized countries, does many 
things which private individuals themselves did during the 
Middle Ages. The State maintains an army and Extension 
navy, administers justice, provides a police system, of State 
and furnishes public education. No one now ques- enter P nse 
tions either the need or the desirability of such activities. As 
we have just learned, the State also subjects private industry 
to ever-increasing regulation for the benefit of the less fortu¬ 
nate members of society. Furthermore, it engages in a variety 
of industrial undertakings. 

Governments sometimes monopolize different branches of 
business for financial reasons — to raise a revenue. Examples 
are the tobacco monopoly of France and the salt Examples 
monopoly of Saxony. Moral considerations may of State 
combine with financial reasons, as illustrated by enter P rise 
the public monopoly of the manufacture of alcoholic liquors 
in Switzerland and in Russia (before 1914). The post office 
is always in government hands, not so much for revenue as 
for the furtherance of cheap communication between different 
parts of the country. In Great Britain and on the Continent 
telegraphs and telephones are managed by the government 
in connection with the post office, and the government 
parcel post does all the business which in the United States 
is partly absorbed by private express companies. Coinage 
is everywhere a public function, as well as banking in 
most European countries. In the United States banks are 
private institutions under state or national regulation. Ger¬ 
many and Russia have public forests; Prussia has public 
mines; and France has a number of canals belonging to the 
government. 


642 Economic and Social Progress 

On the Continent (Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, 
Austria, Russia) railroads are mostly State-owned and State- 

managed. Nearly all the French lines are pri- 
Railroads _ 0 , " . . 

vately owned, but they will revert to the govern¬ 
ment upon the expiration of their franchises. Great Britain 
and the United States took over their railroads for military 
purposes during the World War. The American lines, together 
with the express companies, were returned to private owner¬ 
ship in 1920. In Australia the government built the principal 
railroads and now owns and operates all of them. 

Both British and Continental cities generally own and 
operate such public utilities as street railways, gas and elec- 
Municipai trie lighting plants, and waterworks. Markets, 
enterprise slaughter houses, baths, pawn shops, docks, and 
harbor improvements are likewise often municipal monopolies. 
In the United States municipal ownership has been common in 
the case of waterworks, somewhat less common in the case of 
electric lighting plants, rare in that of gas plants, and scarcely 
known in that of street railways. Since free competition can¬ 
not prevail in these industries, the only choice is between 
municipal ownership or private ownership subject to municipal 
regulation of charges and service. 

It must now be obvious that the laissez-faire policy finds 
few adherents at the present time. The modern State assumes 
Decline of vastly more duties than the three to which Adam 
laissez-faire Smith proposed to limit it. 1 Defense against 
external aggression, preservation of internal order, and the 
maintenance of a few public institutions do not exhaust the 
responsibilities of the State, as these are conceived to-day. 
The reaction against laissez-faire has been very marked since 
1871, one reason being the success of Germany in public regu¬ 
lation and ownership. Continental countries go further in 
the way of “ socialistic ” legislation than either Great Britain 
or the United States, because the Continental peoples have 
been accustomed to paternal rule for centuries. But as Aus¬ 
tralia and New Zealand show, even English-speaking peoples 

1 See page 286. 


Socialism 


643 

tend to abandon that system of “ natural liberty ” which, in 
Adam Smith’s words, leaves every man “ perfectly free to 
pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his 
industry and capital into competition with those of any other 
man or order of men.” 

181 . Socialism 

Contemporary socialists unite in making the following de¬ 
mands. First, the State shall own and operate the instruments 
of production, that is, land and capital. Under what sociai- 
this arrangement rent, interest, and profits, as ism is 
sources of personal income, would disappear, and private 
property would consist simply of one’s own clothing, household 
goods, money, and perhaps a house and a garden plot. Second, 
the leisure class shall be eliminated by requiring everybody 
to perform useful labor, either physical or mental. Third, 
the income of the State shall be distributed as wages and salaries 
among the workers, according to some fairer principle than 
obtains at present. 

Socialism, thus explained, is not identical with public owner¬ 
ship of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, the postal service, 
and other utilities. There is still a leisure class what sociai- 
and there are still personal incomes in those ism 1S not 
countries which have gone farthest in the direction of public 
ownership. Similarly, labor legislation is not properly de¬ 
scribed as socialistic, since it fails to abolish private property, 
the factory system, and rent, interest, and profits. 

Socialism is, in part, an outcome of the Industrial Revolution, 

which completed the separation of capital and labor. The 

gulf between the capitalists and the landless, Socialism 
b J , and the 

propertyless, wage-earning proletariat became Industr iai 

wider, the contrasts between rich and poor became Revolution 
sharper, than ever before. Vastly more wealth was now 
produced than in earlier ages, but it was still unequally dis¬ 
tributed. The few had too much; the many had too little. 
Radical reformers, distressed by these inequalities and dis¬ 
satisfied with the slow progress of the labor movement and 


644 


Economic and Social Progress 

government regulation of industry, began to proclaim the 
necessity of a wholesale reconstruction of society. 

In Great Britain the most prominent of these early radicals 
was Robert Owen, a rich manufacturer and philanthropist, 
Robert Owen, who did much to improve the conditions of life 
1771-1858, f or hj s employees. Among his innovations were 

and coopera- . , ' . . 

tive com- cooperative shops, where workmen could buy 

munities good things cheaply and divide the profits between 
them. This principle of cooperative distribution has subse¬ 
quently attained great success in England, 1 and Owen deserves 

credit as its originator. He 
also advocated cooperation in 
production. His special remedy 
for social ills was the estab¬ 
lishment of small cooperative 
communities, each one living 
by itself on a tract of land 
and producing in common 
everything needed for its sup¬ 
port. He thought that this 
arrangement would retain the 
economic advantages of the 
great inventions without intro¬ 
ducing the factory system. 
Owen’s experiments in cooper¬ 
ation all failed, including the 
one which he established at New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825. 
Owen thus belongs in the class of Utopian 2 socialists, men 
who dreamed of ideal social systems which were never 
realized. 

Socialism is also, in part, an outcome of the French Revo¬ 
lution. That upheaval destroyed so many time-hallowed 
institutions and created so many new ones that it gave a 
great impetus to schemes for the regeneration of society. 

1 See page 636. 

2 A name derived from Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. The word “socialism” was 
probably coined by Owen. 



Robert Owen 

After a plaster medallion by Miss Beech. 


Socialism 


645 


French radical thinkers soon set out to purge the world of 
capitalism as their fathers had purged it of socialism and 
feudalism. Their ideas began to become pop- the French 
ular with workingmen after the factory system, Revolutlon 
with its attendant evils, gained an entrance into France. 

The workers found a leader in Louis Blanc, a journalist and 

author of wide popularity. The revolution of 1789, he declared, 

had benefited the peasants; that of 18^0 the 

... ... . , Louis Blanc, 

capitalists or bourgeoisie; the next must be for 1813-1882, 
the benefit of the proletariat. Blanc believed and national 
that every man had an inalienable right to re¬ 
munerative employment — the droit au travail. To provide it, 
he proposed that the State should furnish the capital for national 
workshops. These were to be managed by the operatives 
themselves, who would divide the profits of the industry be¬ 
tween them and thus eliminate capitalists altogether. Blanc’s 
ideas triumphed for a time in the “ February Revolution ” of 
1848, which had been brought about by the Parisian pro¬ 
letariat. The second French Republic expressly recognized 
the “ right to labor,” set up the national workshops, and 
promised two francs a day to every registered workingman. 
Crowds came from every part of France to take advantage of 
the offer, and before long there were 120,000 additional laborers 
in the capital, with nothing to do but plant “ trees of liberty ” 
in rows. The drain upon the treasury and the demoralization 
of the people by this State charity soon led the government 
to abandon the entire scheme. The result was a popular 
uprising only crushed by military force. It should be said in 
justice to Blanc that the government appears to have pur¬ 
posely mismanaged the national workshops, in order to dis¬ 
credit the socialistic movement in France. 

Meanwhile, a new socialism, more systematic and practical 
than the old, began to be developed by German thinkers. Its 
chief representative was Karl Marx. His parents Karl Marx, 
were well-to-do Jews who had embraced Chris- 1818-1883 
tianity. Marx as a young man studied at several German 
universities and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 


646 


Economic and Social Progress 


Marxism 


Becoming interested in economic subjects, he founded a socialist 
newspaper to advocate the cause of the working classes. The 
government suppressed it, after the failure of the revolutionary 
movement of 1848-1849, and expelled Marx from Germany. 
He went to London and lived there in exile for the rest of his 
days, finding time, in the midst of a hard struggle for existence, 
to write his famous work, Das Kapital . 1 It has a place beside 
Rousseau’s Social Contract and Smith’s Wealth of Nations 

among the books which 
have profoundly influenced 
human thought and ac¬ 
tion. 

Marx felt little sympa¬ 
thy with Utopian schemes 
to make over 
society and 
described them sarcasti¬ 
cally as “ duodecimo edi¬ 
tions of the New Jeru¬ 
salem.” In opposition to 
Owen, Blanc, and other 
earlier socialists, he sought 
to build up a system of 
socialism based on eco¬ 
nomic principles. Put in its simplest form, Marxism asserts that, 
while labor is the source of all value, laborers receive, in fact, 
only a fraction of what they produce. All the rest goes to 
the capitalistic bourgeoisie , or middle class, who produce nothing. 
Capitalism, however, is the inevitable result of the factory 
system. Like feudalism, it forms a stage, a necessary stage, in 
the development of mankind. It is fated to disappear with 
the progress of democracy, which, by giving the proletariat 
the vote, will enable them to displace the bourgeoisie, take 
production into their own hands, and peacefully inaugurate 
the socialist state. 

1 The first volume of Das Kapital appeared in 1867. The second and third 
volumes were not published until after Marx’s death. 



Karl Marx 


Socialism 


647 

The socialistic ideas of Marx are more briefly and popularly 
set forth in the Communist Manifesto , which he and his as¬ 
sociate Friedrich Engels put forth in the revo- The Com 
lutionary year of 1848. It demanded, among munist 
other things, abolition of property in land and ^g ifest0 ’ 
application of all rents of land to public purposes, 
a heavy, progressive income tax, abolition of the right of in¬ 
heritance, centralization of credit in the hands of the State by 
means of a national bank with an exclusive monopoly, State 
ownership of the means of communication and transport, 
State ownership of factories and other instruments of produc¬ 
tion, national cultivation of the soil, and compulsory labor for 
all. The conclusion of the Communist Manifesto is frequently 
quoted by socialists: “ The proletarians have nothing to lose 
except their chains. They have a world to gain. Working¬ 
men of all lands, unite! ” 

During the ’seventies of the last century the co-workers 
of Marx in Germany founded the Social Democratic Party. 1 
The government, under Bismarck’s leadership, The Social 
tried to repress it by prohibiting meetings of social- Democratic 
ists and the circulation of socialist literature. Any Party 
effort to propagate socialist doctrine was made punishable by 
fines and imprisonment. The police were also authorized to 
deport all suspected persons. Persecution failed to check the 
socialist movement, which has grown phenomenally in recent 
years. The socialist vote for members of the Reichstag reached 
a total of 4,250,000 in 1912. Three-fourths of these votes were 
not cast by members of the Social Democratic Party, however, 
but by German liberals who wanted to protest as effectively as 
possible against autocracy and militarism. 

The Social Democratic Party provided a model for similar 
organizations of Marxian socialists in Great Britain, France, 
Italy, Austria, Russia, and the other European National 
countries, as well as in the United States, Aus- socialist 
tralia, and Japan. Congresses of delegates from parties 
the national parties have been held from time to time, in order 

1 See page 490. 


648 Economic and Social Progress 

to bring together the working classes of every land. In 1914 
the socialists throughout the world polled about eleven million 
votes and elected over seven hundred representatives to the 
various parliaments. 

Not all contemporary socialists rely on orderly and legal 
means to abolish capitalism. A large group of extreme social- 

_ ists would use violence and terrorism in the sup- 

Syndicalism 

posed interest of the proletariat. France has re¬ 
cently had to cope with the movement called syndicalism. 1 
Its adherents contend that the road to the socialist millenium 
does not he in parliamentary activity, necessarily slow and 
uncertain, but in “ direct action,” by which they mean coercion 
of employers. The syndicalists aim to combine all the small 
labor unions, each representing a single craft, into one big 
union, which would comprise both skilled and unskilled workers. 
For example, all the men engaged in railroad transport would 
form a single body; similarly, all those in the building trade, 
from carpenters and painters to iron-workers and steam- 
fitters. A mammoth organization of this sort could then 
carry on the war between labor and capital by means of general 
strikes embracing the entire industry. The syndicalists also 
propose to continue the class struggle by means of “ sabotage,” 2 
or the practice of injuring machinery, spoiling materials, and 
loafing on the job. “ Poor work for poor pay ” is a syndicalist 
motto. The methods of the syndicalists have been advocated 
and adopted in the United States by the Industrial Workers 
of the World. 

182. Poverty and Progress 

No one conversant with social conditions in large cities can 
deny the existence there of very many people below or scarcely 
The fact of above the poverty fine. An English investigator 
poverty found thirty per cent of the inhabitants of London 
so wretchedly housed, clothed, warmed, and fed that their 
health and physical efficiency as workers was seriously impaired. 


1 From the French syndicat, a trade union. 

2 From the French sabot, a wooden shoe. 


Poverty and Progress 649 

The results showed themselves in the high death rate of young 
and old and their marked inferiority in height, weight, and 
physical condition. What is true of London is doubtless true 
of other industrial centers in Europe, and, to a less extent, in 
the United States. Despite all the wonderful inventions and 
scientific discoveries which have so increased the productive 
powers of man,* there are still millions of human beings in the 
Christian world who lead lives of grinding toil, without an in¬ 
come sufficient for their barest needs. 

Socialists allege that poverty is caused by the unequal and 
inequitable distribution of wealth under the present economic 
organization of society. The truth is that no Causes of 
single condition — over-population, property in P° vert y 
land, competition, the factory system — explains poverty, 
for each one has been absent in previous social stages. No 
people live more poorly than savages, who are few in numbers 
and ignorant of property in land. And, as previously noticed, 1 
such industrially backward countries as Russia, India, and 
China are the countries where poverty is most bitter and 
widespread. It is quite certain, furthermore, that poverty in 
the older industrial regions of western Europe has steadily 
declined during the last one hundred and fifty years. Some 
socialists now recognize this fact, though still maintaining that 
the workman fails to secure his fair share of the increased 
wealth of the world. The causes of poverty are as complex 
as modern life, some being due to faults of personal character 
or physical and mental defects, and others being produced 
by lack of education, bad surroundings, corrupt or inefficient 
government, and economic conditions which result in lack of 
employment, high cost of living, monopolies, and the like. 

Since there is no single cause of poverty, there can be no 
single remedy for it. Putting aside socialism as impracticable, 
one may still look forward confidently to the Prevention 
prevention of much poverty by trade-union ac- of poverty 
tivity, by government regulation of industry (including old- 
age pensions, State insurance against sickness and disability, 
1 See page 617. 


650 Economic and Social Progress 

protection against non-employment, and the minimum wage), 
by education of the unskilled, by improved housing, and by 
all the agencies and methods of private philanthropy. 

The progress of the so-called “ lower classes ” since 'the 
Industrial Revolution leads modern economists and statesmen 
Abolition to anticipate the complete abolition of poverty, 

of poverty at j eas t a ll suffering from hunger, cold, and naked¬ 
ness, in those countries which have already abolished slavery 
and serfdom. Indeed, with the increase of wages, the growing 
demand for intelligent work, and the spread of popular educa¬ 
tion, skilled laborers have multiplied so rapidly as to outnumber 
those whose labor is entirely unskilled; they belong no longer 
to the “ lower classes,” but already live better than did the 
majority of the upper classes before the Industrial Revolution. 
As Mr. Lloyd George has said, the time draws near “ when pov¬ 
erty with its wretchedness and squalor will be as remote from 
the people as the wolves which once infested the forests.” 

The evils of modern industrialism, though real, have been 
exaggerated. They are and were the evils accompanying the 
Economic transition from one stage of society to another, 
democracy Few wou i(j w i s h now to retrace their steps to an 
age when there were no factories, no railroads, and no great 
mechanical inventions. Machinery now does much of the 
roughest and hardest work and, by saving human labor, makes 
it possible to shorten hours of toil. The world’s workers, in 
consequence, have opportunities for recreation and education 
previously denied them. After one hundred and fifty years of 
modern industrialism, we begin to see that, besides helping 
to produce political democracy, it is also creating economic 
democracy. It is gradually diffusing the necessaries and com¬ 
forts, and even many of the luxuries of life, among all peoples 
in all lands. 

Studies 

1. Explain what is meant by the following: (a) bimetallism; {b) crises; (^pro¬ 
tectionism; (d) contraband of war; (e) peasant proprietorships; (f) minimum wage; 
and ( g ) capitalism. 2. Show how modern commerce has been facilitated by the 
submarine cabje, wireless telegraphy, the postal system, and marine insurance, or 
underwriting. 3. Mention some of the most important articles of commerce and 


Poverty and Progress 651 

the countries where they are chiefly produced. 4. Why should there be an inter¬ 
national or world price for such commodities as wheat and cotton? 5. How has 
the construction of the Suez and Panama canals affected oceanic trade routes? 

6. Mention all the kinds of insurance (other than life insurance) familiar to you. 

7. Distinguish a commercial bank from a savings bank and from a trust company. 

8. When and why was there a “free silver ” agitation in the United States? 9. Why 
did Great Britain adopt a free-trade policy? Why does she maintain it, when other 
nations follow a policy of protection? 10. What are the effects of smuggling or 
evasion of customs duties, on (a) the public revenue, ( b ) honest merchants, and 
(c) consumers? n. Enumerate the clauses of the Declaration of Paris and ex¬ 
plain their significance. 12. Account for the development of landlordism in Great 
Britain. 13. Comment on some of the social effects of peasant proprietorships. 
14. Compare the modem trade union with the medieval craft guild. 15. What 
criticisms are sometimes leveled at trade unions? Discuss their justification. 
16. Why must labor legislation, to become entirely effective, be international in 
scope? 17. What instances of state and municipal ownership in this country are 
familiar to you? 18. Distinguish (a) between socialism and anarchism and ( b ) be¬ 
tween socialism and democracy. 19. Is it true, as Marx asserted, that labor is 
the source of all value? 20. Mention some of the probable advantages and some 
of the probable disadvantages of the socialist state. 21. Compare as to purposes 
and results the charity of the Middle Ages with the organized charity of to-day. 
22. “The growth of large cities constitutes perhaps the greatest of all the prob¬ 
lems of modern civilization.” Comment on this statement. 



First Singer Sewing Machine, 
1851 
































CHAPTER XXV 

MODERN CIVILIZATION 


183. Internationalism 


The world, which seemed so large to our forefathers, to us 
seems very small and compact. Railroads, steamships, and 
Unity of airplanes bind the nations together, and the tele¬ 
modern graph, the submarine cable, and the “ wireless ” 
civilization k ee p them in constant communication. The 
oceans, no longer barriers, serve as highways uniting East and 
West, Orient and Occident. Commerce and finance are inter¬ 
national; capital finds investment in foreign countries as readily 
as at home; and trade unionism, labor legislation, and social¬ 
ism become common to all the world. National isolation dis¬ 
appears as ideas and ideals tour the globe. 

Everywhere people build the same houses, use the same 
furniture, and eat the same food. Everywhere they enjoy 
the same amusements and distractions: concerts, 
“moving pictures,” the theater, clubs, magazines, 
automobiles. They also dress alike. Powder, 
gold lace, wigs, pigtails, three-cornered hats, knee breeches, 
silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes passed away in revolu¬ 
tionary France with the other follies of the Old Regime, and 
the loose coat and long trousers of the working classes became 
the accepted style for men’s apparel, not only in France, but 
eventually in all civilized countries. Women’s apparel still 
changes year by year, but the new fashions, emanating from 
Paris, London or New York, are speedily copied in San 
Francisco, Melbourne, and Tokio. 

The inconveniences resulting from the diversity of languages 
were never greater than to-day, when travel is a general habit 
and when nations read one another’s books and profit by one 

652 


Uniformity 
of modern 
civilization 














































































































Internationalism 


653 

another’s discoveries and inventions. The internationalism of 
modern literature, science, philosophy, and art demands an 
international medium of expression. Latin was Universal 
the speech of learned men in Europe throughout lan e ua ges 
the Middle Ages, and French has been the speech of polite 
society and diplomacy for more than two centuries. What is 
needed, however, is a universal language, which can be readily 
mastered by any one. Crude attempts at such a language 
have already appeared in Volapuk and Esperanto, but a really 
satisfactory artificial idiom remains to be created. 

Meanwhile, the spread of English-speaking peoples through¬ 
out the globe seems destined to make English, in some sort, a 
universal language. It is now used by 175 million The English 
people, either as their mother language or as an lan s ua se 
acquired tongue. 1 Those using Russian are estimated at 100 
millions, German, 80 millions, Spanish, 50 millions, and French, 
40 millions. The simple grammar and cosmopolitan vocabulary 
of English adapt it to an international role. In spite of an 
often arbitrary spelling and pronunciation, it is more easily 
learned than any other of the great languages of the world. 

The idea of a universal exposition, to which all countries 
should send their art treasures or the marvels of their industry, 
first took shape in the Crystal Palace Exhibition Universal 
(London, 1851). Since then European expositions expositions 
have been numerous, each one larger than its predecessor. 
The Universal Exhibition (Paris, 1900) attracted 51,000,000 
visitors. The United States began with the Philadelphia Cen¬ 
tennial of 1876. This was followed by the' World’s Fair at 
Chicago in 1893 and by the more recent expositions at St. Louis 
and San Francisco. 

World congresses are constantly being held to deal with such 
matters of common interest as the metric system of weights 
and measures, monetary standards, protection of patents and 
copyrights, improvement in the condition of the working 

1 United Kingdom, 45,000,000; Canada and Australia, 12,000,000; British 
Africa, 5,000,000; British India and other possessions, 3,000,000; the United 
States, 110,000,000 


654 Modern Civilization 


classes, advancement of social reform, woman’s suffrage, and 
the establishment of universal peace. Two thousand such 
The “ inter- gatherings took place in the half century immedi- 
nationai ately preceding the World War. Some of them 
have resulted in the formation of permanent or¬ 
ganizations such as the Red Cross Society (1864) 1 and the 
Postal Union (1874). 2 Frequent meetings of distinguished 
scholars and men of letters from the different countries also 
help to produce what has been well called the “ international 
mind.” 

Increased intercourse between civilized peoples not only 
broadens their outlook but also widens their sympathies. Feel- 
The “ inter- i n g s ^ uman brotherhood, once limited to the 
members of one’s clan, tribe, city, or state, ex¬ 
pand to include all mankind. There develops an 
4 ‘international conscience,” which emphasizes the obligations 
of the strong toward the weak and protests against the oppres¬ 
sion of any members of the world community by any others. 
Let us consider some of its manifestations during the past 
century. 


national 

conscience 


184. Social Betterment 

Little more than one hundred years ago the slave trade was 
generally regarded as a legitimate business. Hardly any one 
Abolition of thought it wrong to kidnap or purchase African 

the slave negroes, pack them on shipboard, where many 

died in the stifling holds, and carry them to the 
West Indies or the American mainland to be sold as slaves. 
No voice was raised in protest when Great Britain, by the 
Peace of Utrecht, secured the right to ship annually for thirty 
years forty-eight hundred slaves to the Spanish colonies in 
America, thus becoming the chief slave-trading nation in the 
world. It is estimated that by the close of the eighteenth 
century more than three million negroes were brought to the 
New World and that at least a quarter of a million more perished 
on the way thither. The Quakers early opposed this shameful 

1 See page 659. 2 See page 613. 


Social Betterment 


655 

practice, and after the great religious revival of Wesley 1 they 
were joined by the Methodists, and, indeed, by all enlightened 
and humane people. Finally, in 1807, Parliament prohibited 
Englishmen from engaging in the slave trade. 2 The Congress 
of Vienna, to its credit, pronounced against the traffic which 
had so long desolated Africa and degraded Europe, and in sub¬ 
sequent years the Continental nations, one after another, agreed 
that it should no longer enjoy the protection of their flags. 
Since the last decade of the nineteenth century the European 
powers have also taken concerted measures to stamp out what 
remains of the slave trade in the interior of the Dark 
Continent. i 

Slavery had all but died out in Christian lands by the close 
of the Middle Ages. It revived, on a much larger scale, after 
the era of geographical discovery, which opened Abolition 
up Africa as a source of slaves and America as a of slavef y 
field for their profitable employment. The French revolution¬ 
ists abolished slavery in the colonies of France, but Napoleon 
restored it. Great Britain in 1833 passed an act to free the 
slaves in the British West Indies, paying one hundred million 
dollars to their former masters as compensation. This aboli¬ 
tion of slavery, as well as of the slave trade, is a monument to 
the humanitarian labors of William Wilberforce, who for nearly 
half a century devoted his wealth, his energies, and his powerful 
oratory to the cause of the oppressed negroes. Within the 
next thirty years slavery peacefully disappeared in the colonial 
possessions of France, Portugal, and Holland, but in the United 
States only at the cost of civil war. Brazil, in 1888, was the 
last Christian state to put an end to slavery. 

The penal code of eighteenth-century Europe must be de¬ 
scribed as barbarous. Torture of an accused person, in order 
to obtain a confession, usually preceded his trial. The old 
Only a few nations, Great Britain among them, penal code 
forbade its use. Prisons were private property, and the in- 

1 See page 283. 

2 The United States, under one of the clauses of the Constitution (Article I, 
Section 9) tolerated the importation of negro slaves until 1808. 


6 5 6 


Modern Civilization 



mates, whether innocent or guilty, 
had to pay their keeper for food and 
other necessaries. Men, women, 
and children were herded together, 
the hardened criminals with the 
first offenders. Branding, flogging, 
and exposure in the pillory formed 
common punishments. Death was 
the punishment for murder, arson, 
burglary, horse-stealing, theft, for¬ 
gery, counterfeiting, and many other 
crimes. The British code included 
over two hundred capital offenses. 
A man (or a woman) might be 
hanged for stealing as little as five 
shillings from a shop or for picking 
a pocket to the value of a single 
shilling. Transportation to America 
or to Australia was often substi¬ 
tuted, however, for the death 
penalty. Executions took place in public, on the mis¬ 
taken theory that to see 
them would deter from 
crime. 

The great name in penal 
reform is that of the Italian 
Reform of Beccaria, whose 

the penal Essay on Crimes 

code and Punish¬ 

ments appeared in 1764. It 
bore early fruit in the gen¬ 
eral abolition of torture and 
of such ferocious punish¬ 
ments as burning alive, break¬ 
ing on the wheel, and drawing 
and quartering. Penal reform 
in France was hastened by the 


Petty Offenders in the 
Pillory 

After a French drawing of the 
early nineteenth century. 



Elizabeth Fry 









Social Betterment 


6 57 

Revolution. Great Britain from about 1815 began to reduce 
the number of capital offenses, until only high treason, piracy, 
and murder remained. One consequence of the reform was a 
striking diminution of crime, though judges and other conserv¬ 
ative persons had predicted just the reverse. Capital punish¬ 
ment has now been abolished by several European countries, 
including Italy, Portugal, Holland, Norway, and Rumania. A 
few American states do not inflict the death penalty. 

Prison reform accompanied the reform 
of the criminal code. One of the leaders 
of this humanitarian move- ‘Prison 
ment was a Quakeress, Mrs. reform 
Elizabeth Fry. Not content with Great 
Britain as a field for labor, she extended 
her efforts to all the principal European 
countries. Much has been done within 
the past century to improve sanitary con¬ 
ditions in prisons, to abolish the lock-step, 
striped clothing, and other humiliating 
practices in the treatment of prisoners, and, 
by means of juvenile courts and reforma¬ 
tories, to separate first offenders from hard¬ 
ened criminals. Even as regards the latter, 
the idea is now to make confinement less a 
punishment than a means of developing the 
convict’s self-respect and manhood, so that 
he may return to free life a useful member 
of society. Prison reform in the various 
countries has been much advanced by international congresses. 
The last took place in 1910, twenty-eight states being repre¬ 
sented at the meeting. 

The modern attitude toward the feeble-minded and the in¬ 
sane contrasts sharply with earlier ideas concerning them. 
Mentally defective persons are no longer regarded Treatment of 
with amusement or contempt, but are rather con- defectives 
sidered as pitiful victims of heredity or of circumstances for 
which they were not responsible. Every civilized country now 



A Lunatic 

After an eighteenth cen¬ 
tury engraving, showing a 
lunatic, barefoot, scantily 
clothed, and chained by 
the neck to a wall. 


Modern Civilization 


658 


provides asylums for their proper care under medical super¬ 
vision. There are also special schools for the benefit of the 
blind and of the deaf and dumb. 

An increasing sympathy with the brute creation also char¬ 
acterizes our age. The British Society for the Prevention of 
Treatment of Cruelty to Animals was founded only in 1824. 
animals Ten years later Parliament did away with bull 

baiting and cock fighting, which had long been favorite amuse¬ 
ments of the lower classes, and prohibited cruelty to all domestic 
animals. Similar legislation has been enacted on the Con¬ 
tinent, as well as in the United States. 

The crusade against alcoholism further illustrates humani¬ 
tarian progress. The use of intoxicants, formerly uncondemned, 
Abolition of mor e and more comes under moral reprobation, as 
the liquor it is realized that they form one of the most potent 
agencies of man’s degeneration. The World War led 
Russia to abolish the government monopoly of vodka and other 
countries to restrict the consumption of alcoholic liquors. In 
1919 Norway and Belgium adopted partial prohibition (exclud¬ 
ing beer and light wines), while Finland declared for unlimited 
prohibition. In the United States the temperance movement 
was especially actuated by hostility toward the saloon, as a mis¬ 
chievous agency which interfered in politics and flaunted its 
temptations before the youth of the country. The failure of 
attempts to find substitutes for the saloon convinced a good 
many people that this baleful influence could only be removed 
from American life by drastic measures of prohibition. Aboli¬ 
tion of the liquor traffic in the United States was long agitated 
by private organizations, such as the Women’s Christian 
Temperance Union (under the presidency of Miss Frances E. 
Willard) and more recently by the Anti-Saloon League. 
Maine adopted legal prohibition in 1884. Many states in the 
Middle West and the South subsequently took the same action. 
Prohibition sentiment became at length so strong that a con¬ 
stitutional amendment, forbidding the manufacture, sale, or 
transportation of intoxicating liquors throughout the country, 
was ratified by more than three-fourths of the state legisla- 


Social Betterment 659 * 

tures by January 16, 1919. This Eighteenth Amendment went 
into effect one year after ratification. 

Efforts to relieve poverty and suf¬ 
fering have given rise to charity 
organization societies, Philanthropic 
associations for improv- a s encies 
ing the condition of the poor, dis¬ 
pensaries, anti-tuberculosis leagues, 
fresh-air funds, and numerous other 
philanthropic agencies in both Europe 
and America. The Salvation Army 
was started in Great Britain by 
William Booth, a Methodist minister, 
with the idea of bettering both the 
physical and spiritual condition of 
those who are not reached by other 
religious bodies. Since its foundation 
in 1878 the Salvation Army has spread to the United States and 

other countries. The Young 
Men’s Christian Association 
also arose in Great Britain, 
but the Y. M. C. A. is now 
well known all over the 
world. 

The Red Cross owes its in¬ 
spiration to a young Swiss, 
Henri Dunant, The Red 
who had wit- Cross 
nessed the bloody battle of 
Solferino in the Austro- 
Sardinian War, 1 and whose 
experience prompted him to 
urge the formation of relief 
societies for the care of 
sick and wounded soldiers. 
The result was an international gathering at Geneva in 

1 See page 400. 




William Booth 






66 o 


Modern Civilization 


1864 and the framing of an agreement to alleviate the horrors 
of modern warfare. The ten states which originally ratified 
the Geneva Convention have since been joined by prac¬ 
tically all civilized powers. To carry , out the convention the 
International Red Cross Society was formed, with head¬ 
quarters at Geneva and branches in the various countries. 
Henri D unant’s name is scarcely known to-day, but the 
organization which he did most to found has now become a 
world-wide institution for the relief of all suffering, whether 
caused by war or by pestilence, floods, fire, or other calamities. 
It is the greatest single agency at work for the amelioration 
of mankind. 

185. Emancipation of Women and Children 

Woman’s position in Europe a century ago was what it had 
been in the Middle Ages — a position of dependence on man. 
Disabilities She received little or no education, seldom en- 
of woman gaged in anything but housework, and for support 
relied on husband, father, or brother. After marriage she 
became subject to her husband. In Great Britain she could 
neither make a will nor enter into a contract without his con¬ 
sent. All her possessions belonged to him. Any money that 
she earned or inherited was his and might be taken to pay 
his debts. The law even deprived her of control over her 
own children. Similar disabilities rested upon Continental 
women. 

The humanitarian sentiment evoked by the French Revo¬ 
lution began by freeing slave and serf, but presently demanded 
Woman’s the emancipation of woman also. The demand 

rights received a powerful impetus from the Industrial 

Revolution, which opened new employments to woman out¬ 
side the home and thus lessened her economic dependence on 
man. The agitation for woman’s rights has so far succeeded 
that most civilized countries now permit her to own property, 
engage in business, and enter the professions on her own account. 
Her educational opportunities have also steadily widened. 


Emancipation of Women and Children 661 



Wesleyan College, Georgia, and Mount Holyoke Female 
Seminary, Massachusetts, were 
the pioneer colleges for women 
in America. Both were incor¬ 
porated in 1836. Oberlin 
College (1833) was the first pri¬ 
vate institution and the Univer¬ 
sity of Iowa (1856) was the first 
state university to adopt co¬ 
education. The higher educa¬ 
tional institutions of Great Brit¬ 
ain, France, Italy, and most 
other European countries permit 
women to hear lectures and to 

receive degrees on the same -.. v . :¥gtr 

terms as men. Mary Lyon 

Woman suffrage scored its Founder of Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, 
first victories in Scandinavia. During the decade before the 

World War, both Finland 
and Norway permitted 
women to Woman 

vote at gen- suffrage 
. . ,. abroad 

eral elections. 

Denmark and Sweden ex¬ 
tended voting privileges 
to women shortly after 
the outbreak of the war. 
The women of Holland 
received full suffrage in 

1918, and those of Bel¬ 
gium partial suffrage in 

1919. Republican Ger¬ 
many, Austria, Czecho¬ 
slovakia, and Poland give 
women the vote. The 

Equal Franchise Act, 1 passed by the British Parliament in 
1 See page 430 • 



Susan B. Anthony 

After a photograph taken at the age of forty-eight. 




662 


Modern Civilization 


1918, has practically doubled the electorate of the United 
Kingdom. Australia and New Zealand have woman suffrage, 
as well as Mexico and Soviet Russia. 

As far back as 1869, when the Fifteenth Amendment to the 

Constitution, granting suffrage to negroes, was before Con- 

w gress, Miss Susan B. Anthony and her associates 

suffrage in appealed to the legislators for the recognition of 

the United women as well. The appeal was denied. The 

States ^ 

women then organized the National Woman 

Suffrage Association and began a campaign of education to 
convince thinking people of the justice of their cause. Years 
passed without much apparent progress being made. Wyo¬ 
ming, when admitted to statehood in 1892, gave the ballot to 
women, and by 1918 fourteen other states had done the same. 
Finally, the constitutional amendment for woman suffrage 
(sometimes called the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment”), 

which had been constantly before Congress for forty years, 
received the approval of that body and went to the country, 
with every prospect of speedy ratification by three-fourths of 
the states. It was ratified in 1920, thus establishing complete 
political democracy in the United States. 

The divorce laws of the Christian world exhibit a bewildering 
variety. Roman Catholic countries, including Italy and Spain 
(and Portugal until the recent revolution there), 
preserve the medieval conception of marriage as a 
sacrament and therefore do not allow divorce under any cir¬ 
cumstances. The same is true of most Latin American states. 
Countries adhering to the Greek Church allow divorce. Those 
governed or influenced by the Code Napoleon, in particular, 
France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany, do the 
same. Divorce was allowed by English law only as late as 
1857. It is rare in Great Britain, as well as in Canada. The 
laws of the United States present no uniformity, some states 
granting divorce on much easier terms than others. The re¬ 
sult has been a very marked annual increase in the number 
of divorces. In general, modern legislation tends to treat 
marriage as a civil contract and to permit its dissolution for 


Popular Education and the Higher Learning 663 

immorality, cruelty, desertion, habitual drunkenness, and seri¬ 
ous crime, that is, for such behavior of one party to the con¬ 
tract as makes married life impossible or unbearable to the 
other party. 

The decline of the husband’s power over his wife has been 
accompanied by a decline of the father’s authority over his 
children. Among early peoples, the ancient Emancipation 
Romans for example, the father’s control of his of children 
offspring was absolute, and their liberty was often sacrificed to 
his despotic rule. The Roman idea of family obligations sur¬ 
vived in Europe through the Middle Ages and still lingers in 
Latin countries at the present time. In Anglo-Saxon countries, 
on the ot^her hand, both law and custom regard the grown-up 
child as independent of the father. Even his authority over 
minors is considered mainly in the fight of guardianship. This 
liberal conception of paternal rights bids fair to prevail among 
all civilized peoples. 

186. Popular Education and the Higher Learning 

The schools of the Middle Ages were neither public nor free 
nor secular. All were private schools where pupils paid fees 
for their tuition, and almost all were founded and Popular 
conducted by the clergy. As we will remember, 1 education 
the beginnings of popular education reach back to the Reforma¬ 
tion era, when elementary schools, supported by general taxa¬ 
tion, began to spring up in Germany, Holland, Scotland, and 
Puritan New England. This free common school system, which 
it is the glory of the reformers to have established, gradually 
spread throughout the United States during the nineteenth 
century and became entirely secular in character. Secondary 
education was also democratized by the founding of free high 
schools for both boys and girls. The advance of democratic 
ideas in Europe has produced a similar movement there in 
favor of popular education. 

British statesmen for a long time looked with disfavor upon 


1 See page 249. 


Modern Civilization 


664 


Public 
schools in 
Great 
Britain 


projects for public schools. Education, they thought, unfits 
the people for manual labor and nourishes revolutionary ideas. 

“If a horse knew as much as a man, I should 
not like to be its rider,” declared a peer in Parlia¬ 
ment, when voting against an appropriation 
for educational purposes. In 1870, after the 
passage of the Second Reform Act, which enfranchised the 
working classes, the government set up for the first time a 
national system of instruction. “We must educate our mas¬ 
ters,” it was said. Elementary education in Great Britain is 
now free, compulsory, and secular. Many parents, however, 
prefer to send their children to private institutions under the 
control of the Established Church. The public and private 
schools together have well-nigh abolished illiteracy. An im¬ 
portant Education Act, which Parliament passed in 1918, 
obligates the government to bear one-half of the total budget 
for educational purposes of every local community. All teachers 
are put on the civil service pension list. Medical inspection and 
treatment, together with careful physical training, are pro¬ 
vided for every child from the time of entering school until 
the age of eighteen. This measure also places all private schools 
under the control of the State. 

The French revolutionists believed with Danton that “next 
to bread, education is the first need of the people.” They pre- 
Public pared an elaborate scheme for public schools, but 

schools in never carried it into effect. Napoleon also aimed 

to set up a State system of education through 
primary and grammar grades to the lycees , or high schools. 
Lack of funds and of experienced lay teachers handicapped the 
emperor’s efforts, and at the close of the Napoleonic era the 
majority of French children still attended private schools con¬ 
ducted by the Church. France waited until the ’eighties of 
the last century before securing a truly national system of edu¬ 
cation. This was largely the work of Jules Ferry, one of Gam- 
betta’s disciples. In recent decades the government has appro¬ 
priated large sums for educational purposes, and illiteracy is 
to-day practically nonexistent. 


Religious Development 665 

Prussia began to reorganize elementary education along 
modern lines as early as the reign of Frederick the Great and 
carried the work further after her crushing defeat p 
by Napoleon. 1 The public school movement has schools else- 

made much progress in other Continental coun- where on the 
, . 1 Continent 

tries during recent years. The percentage of il¬ 
literacy is still high in Italy and higher still in Spain, Portugal, 
and the Balkan states, while in Russia most of the peasants are 
too ignorant to sign their names. With such exceptions, how¬ 
ever, Europe now agrees with the United States that at least 
the rudiments of an education should be the birthright of every 
child, that common schools are the pillars of democracy. 

The United States has done much more than Europe in 
popularizing the higher learning. The American state univer¬ 
sity, with its wide curriculum of both liberal and The higher 
practical subjects, is another nineteenth-century Earning 
innovation. Previous to its establishment private denomina¬ 
tional institutions prepared men for the ministry and a few 
other learned professions. Several southern states (notably 
Virginia in 1817) were the first to found universities, but the 
movement really began with the chartering of the University 
of Michigan in 1837. State universities, admitting both men 
and women, are now found in all the American commonwealths 
south and west of Pennsylvania. Their work is supplemented 
not only by private colleges and universities, but also by the 
splendid benefactions associated with the names of Rockefeller 
and Carnegie. A university education in Europe is still com¬ 
monly restricted to people of means. There is a growing tend¬ 
ency, especially in Great Britain, to make the higher learning 
more accessible to poor but ambitious students. 

187. Religious Development 

Few of us realize how gradually the principle of religious 
toleration has won acceptance in modern times. 2 At first only 
certain Protestant sects, such as the Lutherans in Germany 

1 See page 345. 

2 See pages 283-284. 


666 


Modern Civilization 


after the Peace of Augsburg and the Huguenots in France after 
the Edict of Nantes, enjoyed liberty of conscience and wor- 
Reiigious ship. Next, the same privileges were granted to all 
toleration Protestant sects, as in Holland, in England by the 
Toleration Act, and in the American colonies. Finally, toler¬ 
ation was extended to every one, whether Protestant or Roman 
Catholic, Christian or non-Christian. The First Amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States provides that Congress 
shall make no law prohibiting the “free exercise of religion.” 
The French revolutionists in the Declaration of the Rights of 
Man also announced that no one should be disturbed on account 
of his religious opinions, provided he did not thereby trouble 
public order. The Great Elector and Frederick the Great 
established toleration in Prussia. It was secured in the rest 
of Germany and in Austria-Hungary and Italy only during the 
latter part of the nineteenth century. While Roman Catholi¬ 
cism is the prevailing faith in all the Latin American republics, 
freedom of worship is commonly permitted by them. It may 
be said, broadly, that throughout the Christian world the 
various churches have now abandoned the practice of compul¬ 
sion in religion. Men of different beliefs have found that they/ 
can live peaceably side by side with one another in the same 
country. 

The Church in the Middle Ages controlled, or tried to con¬ 
trol, the State, upon the theory that temporal as well as spiritual 
authority is derived from the pope. The Refor¬ 
mation, in those countries where it succeeded, 
merely substituted a number of separate national 
churches for the one Church of Rome. To Roger 
Williams and William Penn in the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury belongs the honor of having founded in Rhode Island and 
Pennsylvania, respectively, the first political communities where 
religious matters were taken entirely out of the hand/ of the 
civil government. The ideas of Williams and Penn found 
expression in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. Congress is forbidden to make any law “re¬ 
specting an establishment of religion.” This means that the 


Separation 
of Church 
and State in 
the New 
World 


Religious Development 667 

federal government cannot appropriate money for the support 
of any church. No such restriction binds the several states, 
but most of their constitutions repeat the federal prohibition. 
Church and State are absolutely separate in Canada, as well 
as in Mexico, Brazil, and some of the smaller Latin American 
countries. 

The separation of Church and State prevails in Australia, 
South Africa, and other parts of the British Empire. The 
Liberal Party under Gladstone disestablished the Disestab 
Anglican Church in Ireland (1869) and under lishment in 
Lloyd George disestablished it in Wales (1914). ° ld 
The French revolutionists, by the Constitution of 
1795, separated Church and State, but a few years later Napo¬ 
leon’s Concordat with the pope again made Roman Catholicism 
the official religion. The Concordat was abrogated as recently 
as 1905, and both Catholic and Protestant bodie's in France now 
depend entirely upon voluntary contributions for support. The 
Portuguese revolutionists, when founding a republic in 1910, 
disestablished the Roman Church, and the Russian revolu¬ 
tionists in 1917 disestablished the Orthodox Church. The new 
constitution of republican Germany practically disestablishes 
the Prussian Protestant Church, whose head was the kaiser. 
This action has considerable significance, for before the German 
Revolution the Protestant Church in Prussia formed a leading 
prop of divine-right monarchy; altar and throne justified and 
blessed each other. The constitutions of Czecho-Slovakia and 
Poland also provide for the separation of Church and State. 

The pontificate of Pius IX was marked by the meeting of the 
Vatican Council (1869-1870), the first general council of the 
Roman Catholic Church since that at Trent, Papal in- 
three centuries previously. Nearly eight hundred fallablllt y 
prelates from all parts of the world were present. They affirmed 
the dogma of papal infallibility, declaring that when the pope 
speaks ex cathedra / or by virtue of his apostolic authority, on 
matters of faith and morals, he cannot err. His decisions, 
therefore, bind the whole Church. This formal declaration 

1 Literally, “from the throne.” 


668 


Modern Civilization 



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Religious Development 


669 


of the pope’s spiritual position occurred at the very moment 
when he lost what remained of his temporal power in Italy. 1 

The liberal movement in religion has carried further that 
multiplication of sects which began with the Reformation. 
Baptists, Quakers, and Methodists arose in Great gectg 
Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen¬ 
turies. 2 Other sects, including the Adventists, Universalists, 
and Disciples of Christ, and even new religions, such as Mor- 
monism, Spiritualism, and Christian Science, have originated in 
the United States. 

Both Freemasonry and Oddfellowship took their present 
form in Great Britain about two centuries ago. They now 
have thousands of lodges and several millions of secret 
members throughout the world. Their organiza- societies 
tion makes it possible for them to admit votaries of even non- 
Christian faiths, as in India. 

Considerably over a third of the earth’s peoples are Chris¬ 
tians. The adherents of Roman Catholicism number perhaps 
275,000,000; those of the Protestant denomina- The world 
tions, perhaps 175,000,000; and those of the religlons 
Greek Church, perhaps 125,000,000. The Jews are estimated 
at 10,000,000. For the other world religions the following 
figures must be considered merely rough approximations: 
Moslems, 225,000,000; Brahmanists (in India), 225,000,000; 
Bud dhi sts (China, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, Indo-China), 
450,000,000. In this estimate the entire populations of China 
and Japan are counted as Buddhists, owing to the difficulty of 
separating Buddhism in those countries from the national 
faiths. 

The conversion of the non-Christian world, including per¬ 
haps 150,000,000 heathen in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and 
America, is the stupendous task to which Chris- Missions 
tian peoples have addressed themselves since the 
Middle Ages. The work of Roman Catholic missionaries in 
christianizing most of the Filipinos and the Indians of Latin 

1 See page 469 . 

2 See page 283. 


670 


Modern Civilization 


America and Canada has already been noticed. 1 Several 
Protestant denominations founded missionary societies in the 
eighteenth century, and by the middle of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury almost every branch of Protestantism, both in Europe and 
America, had representatives throughout the non-Christian 
world. The number of Christians attached to missions is 
reckoned at 10,000,000, about equally divided between Catho¬ 
lic and Protestant converts. 

But the results of Christian missions cannot be expressed 
statistically. Missionaries have been well called the advance- 
Missions guard of modern civilization. They establish 
and schools and colleges, build hospitals, introduce 

civilization scientific medicine and sanitation, familiarize the 
natives with inventions and discoveries, and often succeed in 
stamping out cruel superstitions, together with such practices 
as cannibalism and human sacrifice. Native converts be¬ 
come, in turn, the means of extending the benefits of modern 
civilization among their countrymen. The effect of mis¬ 
sionary enterprise is therefore enormous, even when con¬ 
versions are relatively few. We may safely include Christian 
missions among the most important of all agencies for bring¬ 
ing backward peoples into the common brotherhood of 
mankind. 


188. Science 

A hundred years ago, science enjoyed only a limited recog¬ 
nition in universities and none at all in secondary and ele- 
Science in mentary schools. The marvelous achievements 
modern life 0 f scientific men fixed public attention on their 
work, and courses in science began to displace the older 
“classical” studies. At the same time science has become 
an international force which recognizes no national bound¬ 
aries, no distinctions of race or religion. Scientists in every 
land follow one another’s researches; they carry on their labor 
in common. 

Many pages would be needed merely to enumerate the 

1 See pages 256 and 563. 


Science 


671 


scientific discoveries that have been made in our age. Some 
of these have changed in many ways our ideas regarding the 
world of matter, and have increased man’s power of using cer¬ 
tain of the great forces of nature. 

The astronomer found a new planet, Neptune; 1 measured 
the distances of the fixed stars and the size of some of the 
largest; and began the enormous task of photo- p ure 
graphing the heavens and cataloguing the five Science 
hundred to one thousand billion suns which form our universe. 

The physicist determined the velocity of light and showed that 
light, radiant heat, electricity, and magnetism are due to 
waves or undulations of the 
ether; that all these are, 
in fact, interconvertible 
forms of cosmic energy. 

The chemist proved that 
matter exists in a solid, 
liquid, or gaseous state ac¬ 
cording to the degree of 
heat to which it is sub¬ 
jected ; that it is composed 
of one or more of eighty- 
odd elements; and that 
when these elements com¬ 
bine with one another they 
do so in fixed proportions 
by weight, as when one 
pound of hydrogen unites 
with eight pounds of oxygen to form nine pounds of water. 

The biologist discovered that all plants and animals, from the 
lowest to the highest, are made up of cells containing the trans¬ 
parent jelly or protoplasm which is the basis of life. 

New conceptions of the earth were set forth by Sir Charles 
Lyell in his Principles of Geology (1830-1833). The uniformi- 
He explained the changes which have produced tanan theory 
mountains, valleys, plains, lakes, sea-coasts, and other natural 

1 Uranus had been discovered in the eighteenth century. 



Sir Charles Lyell 

After a painting by T. H. Maguire. 


672 


Modern Civilization 


features, not as the result of convulsions or great catastrophes, 
such as had been previously supposed to have caused them, 
but as due to erosion by water, the action of frost and snow, 
and other forces working gradually over immense periods of 
time. 1 

The acceptance of Lyell’s uniformitarian theory, coupled with 
the discovery of fossils in the rocks, made it necessary to reckon 
the age of the earth by untold millions, instead of a few thou¬ 
sands, of years. The further discovery in western Europe of 
rude stone implements and human bones associated with the 
remains of extinct animals, such as the mammoth, woolly rhi¬ 
noceros', and cave bear, indicated the existence of man himself 
at a remote period. 

Extraordinary interest has been excited in recent years by 
the so-called relativity theory put forth by the German-Swiss 
The relativity physicist and mathematician, Albert Einstein, 
theory His contributions to our ideas of time and space, 

and to our knowledge of the world in general, are regarded as 
worthy to be compared in importance with the great discoveries 
made by Copernicus and Newton. 

Einstein conceives of the universe as four-dimensional, “ time ” 
being accepted as the fourth dimension, along with length, 
breadth, and height. He would explain gravitation as the effect 
of a warping or strain in this four-dimensional universe, due to 
the presence of matter in space. This explanation, if accepted, 
disposes of the old view of gravitation as a real force acting 
between any two bodies at a distance from each other. 

Einstein also rejects the widely accepted hypothesis of space 
as filled by the mysterious ether, since such an hypothesis does 
not seem necessary to explain light and other electro-magnetic 
phenomena. He also presents another conception of the uni¬ 
verse, which is regarded by him as continuous like any sphere 
but yet of finite size. 

The theory of relativity has already been to some extent con¬ 
firmed by experiments that have been made by other scientists, 
but its full significance cannot be grasped without the aid of the 
higher mathematics. 


Science 


673 


The practical applications of science are innumerable. They 
add to the comfort and convenience of the humblest what the 
rich and powerful of an earlier age could not enjoy. Applied 
Applied physics gave us the telegraph, telephone, physics and 
electric lighting, and electric motive force. More chemistr y 
recently, wireless telegraphy and the radio have developed from 
the discovery in 1887 of the “ Hertzian waves,” or electro¬ 
magnetic vibrations in the ether. In 1895 the German Rontgen 
discovered the X-rays, and in 1898 the French professor Curie, 
assisted by his Polish wife, obtained from the mineral called 
pitchblende the mysterious radium. It is a more intense pro¬ 
ducer of the X-rays than any other substance, yet wastes away 
with incredible slowness. 

Physicists have now found many other radioactive bodies and 
have proved that radioactivity is due to the breaking-up of 
atoms, which are not the indivisible entities they were once 
supposed to be. We now have learned something about the 
marvelous structure of the atom. It has been likened to our 
solar system — if one may be permitted to compare the in¬ 
finitely little with the infinitely great. An atom consists of a 
nucleus, with a positive charge of electricity, and a number of 
electrons, negatively charged, which revolve with tremendous 
speed around the nucleus. This revelation of vast atomic energy 
leads to the belief that long before our supplies of coal and oil are 
exhausted, a source of unlimited power may be found in the 
disintegration of the atom. 

Applied chemistry gave us illuminating gas, friction matches, 
such powerful explosives as dynamite and nitroglycerine, which 
are produced from animal or vegetable fats, artificial fertilizers, 
beet sugar, aluminum, and various derivatives of coal tar, in¬ 
cluding the anile dyes, carbolic acid, naphtha, and saccharine. 
The chemist now creates in his laboratory many organic sub¬ 
stances which had previously been produced only by plants or 
in the bodies of animals. 

The practical applications of biology are seen in the germ 
theory of disease. The researches of the Frenchman, Louis 
Pasteur, upon vegetable micro-organisms (bacteria) proved that 


Modern Civilization 


674 

the harmful kinds are responsible for definite diseases in both 
plants and animals. Dr. Robert Koch of Berlin soon isolated 
Medicine the germs which produce tuberculosis and chol- 
and surgery era> an( j s i nce T gg 0 those producing diphtheria, 
typhoid fever, influenza, pneumonia, lockjaw, bubonic plague, 
and other dread scourges have been identified. In some cases 
remedies called antitoxins are now administered to counteract 
the bacterial toxins or poisons. Another step in medicine is 
the discovery that certain diseases are spread in some one 
particular way. The bite of one species of mosquito causes 
malaria and that of another yellow fever; lice transmit typhus; 
the tsetse-fly carries the sleeping sickness; and fleas on rats 
convey the bubonic plague to man. All this new knowledge 
enables us to look forward with confidence to a time when 
contagious and infectious diseases will be eliminated from civil¬ 
ized countries. 

Meanwhile, surgery has been revolutionized by the use of an¬ 
aesthetics, such as nitrous oxide (laughing gas), ether, and chlo¬ 
roform. Their use in England and the United States goes back 
to the ’forties of the last century. Some years later the English¬ 
man, Joseph Lister, discovered that carbolic acid is a powerful 
germicide, which, applied to wounds, could prevent them from 
festering. The result of his discovery was the general adoption 
of antisepsis in surgical operations. Doctors now pay a great 
deal of attention to asepsis as well, that is, to methods of keeping 
their instruments and dressings free from germs or other harm¬ 
ful organisms. 

The advance of both pure and applied science is due, in the 
first place, to improved methods of investigation. Lord Bacon, 
Methods of the great English thinker, statesman, and author, 
science who flourished during the reign of James I, severely 

criticized the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, with its exag¬ 
gerated veneration for the written word, and proposed, instead, 
that we gather our knowledge from the book of Nature. Ac¬ 
cording to Bacon, the scientist should collect, tabulate, and 
analyze as many facts as possible, with a view to detecting the 
relations between them and of discovering what are “causes” 


MADAME CURIE LOUIS PASTEUR 























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Philosophy and Literature 675 

and what are “effects.” This is the method of observation 
and experiment, or induction. But no modern scientist relies 
exclusively upon it; he also makes use of deduction. He frames 
some hypothesis to explain the phenomena under investigation, 
deduces the consequences which logically follow from the 
hypothesis, and then compares them with the facts as learned 
by observation or experiment. If agreement is found, then the 
hypothesis will be so far confirmed; if non-agreement, then the 
hypothesis may require modification or perhaps may have to 
be abandoned altogether. Darwin’s theory of “natural selec¬ 
tion” is a conspicuous instance of a scientific hypothesis in 
biology. In astronomy a good example is the nebular hypothe¬ 
sis, 1 according to which our own and other solar systems have 
been produced by the condensation of nebulous matter once 
diffused through space. It will be seen that patient, plodding 
investigation does not form the whole of science; a place exists 
in it for the widest flights of the scientific imagination. 

In the second place, scientific advance is due to the im¬ 
provement of apparatus. The giant telescope enables the 
astronomer to measure the movements of stars so Scientific 
incredibly remote that their light rays, which we apparatus 
now see, started earthwards before the dawn of the Christian 
era. The spectroscope analyzes the constituents of the most 
distant heavenly bodies and proves that they are composed 
of the same kinds of matter as our planet. The compound 
microscope reveals the existence of a hitherto unsuspected 
realm of minute life in earth and air and water. The scientific 
possibilities of the photographic camera, especially in the form 
of moving pictures, have only recently been revealed. Science 
now depends on the use of precise instruments of research as 
much as industry depends on machinery. 

189. Philosophy and Literature 

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century man has 
become more and more interested in himself; he has resolved 
i Especially associated with the French astronomer Laplace (1749-1827). 


Modern Civilization 


676 


Philosophy 


Sociology 


to learn what he is, whence he came, and what he shall be. 
These are the old questions of philosophy. Herbert Spencer 
(1820-1903), the close friend of Darwin, sought to answer them 
with the aid of evolutionary principles. The ten volumes of 
his Synthetic Philosophy form an ambitious at¬ 
tempt-to explain the development of the universe 
as a whole, from the atom to the star, from the one-celled organ¬ 
ism to man. Spencer was a pioneer in the study of psychology, 
that branch of philosophy dealing with the mental processes of 
both man and the lower animals. 

Spencer also broke fresh 
ground in the study of soci¬ 
ology. He carried 
over the principle 
of evolution into human so¬ 
ciety, with the purpose of 
showing how languages, laws, 
religions, customs, "and all 
other institutions naturally 
arise and develop among man¬ 
kind. “ Sociology,” as the 
name for this new subject, had 
been previously introduced 
by the French philosopher, 
Auguste Comte. 

The study of history has 
been transformed under the 
influence of the sociologists. It is no longer merely a narrative 
in chronological order of political and military events, but rather 
History and an account of the entire culture of a people. The 
anthropology historian wants to learn about their houses, fur¬ 
niture, costumes, and food; how they made their living; what 
buildings they raised, what books they read; what schools they 
supported; what beliefs and superstitions they held; what 
amusements and festivals they enjoyed. Some historical stu¬ 
dents do not limit inquiry to civilized man, but also investigate 
the culture of savage and barbarous peoples as found to-day or 



Herbert Spencer 

After a photograph of the philosopher at the 
age of seventy-eight. 



Philosophy and Literature 


677 


Fiction 


once found in remote ages. History, so considered, is closely 
related to anthropology, one of the most fascinating of the 
newer branches of learning. 

Public schools, public libraries, and cheap books, magazines, 
and newspapers have multiplied readers. Literature, in con¬ 
sequence, is now a profession, and the successful 
novelist or poet may secure a world-wide audience. 

Sir Walter Scott did much to give the novel popularity through 
his historical tales. 

Dickens, Thackeray, * 

and other English 
writers made it a pre¬ 
sentation of contem¬ 
porary life. On the 
Continent almost all 
the celebrated au¬ 
thors of the past cen¬ 
tury have been novel¬ 
ists. It is sufficient 
to mention four only, 
whose fame has gone 
out into many lands: 
the F renchman Victor 
Hugo; the Italian 
Manzoni; the Russian 
Tolstoy; and the Pole 
Sienkiewicz. 

The drama rivals 
the novel in popular¬ 
ity among all classes. 

It presents either a picture of bygone ages or scenes from every¬ 
day life. In no country does it assume more importance than 
in France, where the theater is considered a branch of public 
instruction. Much dramatic poetry, however, is poetfy 
written to be read, rather than for acting on the 
stage. Lyric poetry has been produced in all countries, not¬ 
ably in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy 



Victor Hugo 

After a painting by Leon Bonnat. 


and the 



678 


Modern Civilization 



Sacred and 

secular 

music 


United States, and has become the favorite style of poetic 
expression. 

190. Music and the Fine Arts 

Music now takes almost as large a place as literature in 
modern life. Even more than literature, it ranks as an inter- 
Music in national force, for the musician, whatever his 
modern life nationality, uses a language which needs no trans¬ 
lation to be intelligible. 

During medieval times music was chiefly used in the services 
of the Church. The Renaissance began to secularize music, 
so that it might express all human joy, sadness, passion, 

and aspira¬ 
tion. The 
secular art 
thus includes operas, 
chamber music (for ren¬ 
dition in a small apart¬ 
ment instead of in a 
theater or concert hall), 
compositions for soloists, 
and orchestral sym¬ 
phonies. 

The Middle Ages knew 
the pipe-organ, harp, 
The flute, drum, 

orchestra trumpet, and 

many other instruments. These were often played together, 
but with no other purpose than to increase the volume of 
sound. There was not the slightest idea of orchestration. 
After the Renaissance new instruments began to appear, in¬ 
cluding the violin, viols of all sizes, the slide trombone, and 
the clarinet. Percussion action, applied to the old-fashioned 
spinet and harpsichord, produced in the eighteenth century 
the pianoforte. The symphony, a tone poem combining all 
musical sounds into a harmonious whole, now began to assume 
its present form. The great symphonists — Haydn, Mozart, 


Mozart’s Spinet 

Stadt Museum, Vienna 

The spinet had only one string to a note, plucked by 
means of a quill or a plectrum of leather. 



Music and the Fine Arts 



Folk songs 


679 

that supreme genius Beethoven (1770-1827), and their succes¬ 
sors in the nineteenth century — thus created a new art to 
enrich the higher life of mankind. 

Another master of music, Richard Wagner (1813-1883), 
created the musical drama, which unites music, poetry, and 
acting. Wagner believed that the singer should The musical 
also be an actor and should adapt both song and drama 
gesture to the orchestra. He also gave much attention to the 
scenery and stagesetting in order to heighten the dramatic 
effect. Wagner’s most fam¬ 
ous work, The Ring of the 
Nibelung, consists of four 
complete dramas based on 
old Teutonic legend. 

A new source of music 
has been opened up in the 
melodies of the 
European peas¬ 
antry — their folk songs. 

Almost every country in 
Europe is rich in these musi¬ 
cal wild flowers, and they 
are now being gathered by 
trained collectors. Lullabies, 
marriage ditties, funeral 
dirges, and ballads are some 
of the varieties of folk songs. 

Like music, sculpture illustrates the internationalism of art. 
The three greatest sculptors of the nineteenth century were 
Canova, an Italian, Thorwaldsen, a Dane, and _ , 

Rodin, a Frenchman. The first two found in¬ 
spiration mainly in classic statuary, which seeks ideal beauty 
of form; the third expressed in marble the utmost realism and 
naturalism. Much fine work has also been done in bronze, 
for instance, the Chicago statue of Abraham Lincoln by St. 
Gaudens, who is rightly considered the most eminent sculptor 
produced by America. 


Ludwig van Beethoven 

After a painting by A. Kloeber, 1817. 


Modern Civilization 


680 

No century has witnessed more activity in the construction 
of churches, town halls, court houses, theaters, schools, and 
other public edifices than the nineteenth, but 
Architecture ^ ese p ave usua lly been reproductions of earlier 

buildings. Architects either went to Greece and Rome for 
models or imitated the Romanesque and Gothic styles. The 
extensive use of structural steel has now begun to produce an 
entirely new architectural style, more appropriate to modern 
needs, in the “skyscraper” of American cities. It is sometimes 



The Opera, Paris 

Erected 1861-1875. Covers nearly three acres and cost $7,000,000. A huge dome 
extends over the auditorium. The interior is magnificently decorated. 


criticized as being “not architecture, but engineering with a 
stone veneer.” The criticism seems hardly just in all cases. 
Such a structure as the Woolworth Building in New York has 
a beauty of its own and truly expresses the spirit of our indus¬ 
trial age. 

Modern painters, no longer restricted to religious pictures, 
often choose their subjects from history or contemporary life. 
Painting They excel in portraiture, and their landscape 
paintings unquestionably surpass the best which 
even the “old masters” of the Renaissance could produce. 















Historic and Artistic Paris 


681 


Painting flourishes especially in France, where the leading 
artists receive their training and exhibit their pictures at an 
annual exposition, the Salon at Paris. 

191 . Historic and Artistic Paris 

The capitals of France and Great Britain represent much that 
is best in modern civilization. Paris and London are the 
largest cities in the Old World. Their civic life Paris and 
reaches back without a break to Roman times. London 
They contain more monuments and edifices of historic or artistic 
interest than any other places in Europe, except Athens, Rome, 
and possibly Venice. To visit either of them is a liberal 
education. 

Paris, the ancient Lutetia, first appears in history as a small 
settlement of the Gallic tribe of the Parisii on an island in the 
Seine (lie de la Cite). This was for centuries the Gallic and 
entire site. Conquered by the Romans under Roman Pans 
Julius Caesar, Paris formed a place of some importance in the 
Roman Empire and after the introduction of Christianity be¬ 
came the see of a bishopric. It repelled the assaults of Attila 
the Hun in the fifth century, but surrendered to Clovis, who 
made it the official residence of the Merovingian kings. 

Charlemagne and the later Carolingians seldom visited Paris, 
which did not again become the seat of government until the 
accession of Hugh Capet. The great Capetian Medieval 
rulers of the Middle Ages showed their affection Paris 
for the city by extending its walls and paving its streets, found¬ 
ing its university, the most famous in Christendom, and build¬ 
ing numerous abbeys and churches in the Gothic style. 

The French monarchs of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 
eighteenth centuries, above all, Louis XIV, continued the 
embellishment of Paris. Here the first Napoleon Modern 
erected his principal monuments. Still more Pans 
noteworthy was the transforming work of the third Napoleon, 
who cleared away the maze of narrow winding streets and sub¬ 
stituted for them broad avenues and noble squares. Paris suf¬ 
fered terribly at the hands of the “communards” of 1871. The 



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Historic and Artistic Paris 


683 


city soon recovered from their depredations, however, and during 
the last hah century completed the great public works which 
make it the most spacious and imposing of modern capitals. 

The Seine runs through Paris from east to west in a broad 
curve for nearly eight miles. Rising from the river are the 
two islands — lie de la Cite and lie St. Louis — Bridges and 
both covered with buildings. Thirty-one hand- ( i uays 
some bridges span the Seine, and wide embankments, or quays, 
line its sides. The principal shops, cafes, and theaters are 
found on the north or right bank of the Seine, while many 
public buildings, schools, and museums occupy the south or 
left bank of the stream. 

No uniformity marks the street plan of Paris. A few of the 
four thousand-odd thoroughfares are shown on the map. Of 
these, a number are the exceptionally wide avenues gtreets 
and boulevards which Napoleon III constructed, as 
much to put an end to barricade fighting as to beautify the city. 

The squares {places) of Paris form one of its chief attractions. 

The finest is the Place de la Concorde, 1 laid out under Louis 

XV and noted as the scene of the execution of _ 

Squares 

Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and many other 
victims of the Terror. An Egyptian obelisk occupies the center 
of the square. The Place de la Concorde connects by the 
splendid Avenue des Champs Elysees (“Elysian Fields”) with 
the Place de l’Etoile (“Square of the Star”), containing the Arc 
de Triomphe. The Place Vendome has a column surmounted 
by a statue of Napoleon I. 2 The Place de la Bastille, on the 
former site of that prison, is marked by a memorial column 3 in 
honor of those who fell in the “July Revolution” of 1830. 

Not less attractive are the promenades and parks of Paris. 
The Jardin des Tuileries, now wholly given over to trees, flowers, 
fountains, and statues, formerly contained the Promenades 
Tuileries Palace, which was burned by the “com- and parks 
munards.” 4 Across the Seine lies the Jardin du Luxembourg, 
with a palace used by the French Senate. The Champ de Mars 


1 See the illustration, page 454. 
3 See the illustration, page 372. 


2 See the illustration, page 456. 
4 See the illustration, page 308. 



Notre Dame 

The present structure, begun in 1163 and completed about 1240, suffered severely during 
the French Revolution, when it was converted into a Temple of Reason. Extensive reno¬ 
vations and alterations were made during the nineteenth century. Two massive square 
towers, originally intended to support spires, crown the principal or western facade. Its 
three doors are surrounded by elaborate sculptures and surmounted by a row of figures 
representing twenty-eight kings of Israel and Judah. Above the central door is a rose 
window of stained glass and above this a graceful gallery of painted arches supported on 
slender columns. 

684 
















































































































Historic and Artistic Paris 685 

(“Field of Mars”) is a parade ground. Here stands the Tour 
Eiffel, a graceful structure of iron lattice-work nearly a thou¬ 
sand feet high. The tower was built for the Paris Exposition 
of 1889. 


Hotel des Invalides 

Notre Dame Cathedral, the most important of Parisian 
churches and one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in 
Europe, occupies part of the island called La Cite. Churches 
The present building has had several predecessors, 
for already in the fourth century a church stood on this site. 
The French revolutionists converted Notre Dame into a Temple 
of Reason, but under Napoleon I it went back to religious 
use. The same emperor built the exquisite Madeleine. 1 


1 See the illustration, page 333- 
















686 


Modern Civilization 


The Louvre, 1 impressive both for extent and noble archi¬ 
tecture, was the chief royal palace until Louis XIV built Ver- 
Civic sailles. It is now a wonderful museum of the 

buildings fine art g. anc i e nt, medieval, and modern. Among 
the priceless treasures to be seen here are the “Aphrodite of 



The Pantheon 

Built in the last half of the eighteenth century on the site of the tomb of Ste. 
Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. 


Melos,” the “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” and Leonardo 
da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” The Palais de Justice (law courts) 
forms a huge assemblage of buildings on the site of the palace 
1 See the illustration, page 308. 















Historic and Artistic Paris 


687 

of Merovingian and Capetian kings. The Hotel des Invalides, 
on the left bank of the Seine, dates from the reign of Louis XIV, 
who founded it as a home for infirm or disabled soldiers. But 
no one thinks of the “Grand Monarch” in the Invalides; it 
is dedicated rather to Napoleon, whose relics crowd its rooms 
and who himself lies in a huge sarcophagus under the gilded 
dome. 1 The Pantheon, another imposing domed building, 
served originally as a church, but the revolutionists in 1791 
secularized it as a sepulcher for great Frenchmen. Voltaire, 
Rousseau, and Victor Hugo are entombed here. The Cham¬ 
ber of Deputies meets in the Palais Bourbon, 2 built in the 
eighteenth century, and the president of the French republic 
occupies the Palais de l’Elysee, another eighteenth-century 
structure. 

Besides the Louvre, Paris has many other museums. The 
most interesting, historically, is the Musee de Cluny, installed 
in a Gothic mansion built by the abbot of Cluny Museums 
during the fifteenth century. It stands on the and llbraf ies 
site of a Roman palace, the ruins of whose baths still remain. 
Among the libraries of Paris the Bibliotheque Nationale, which 
occupies Cardinal Mazarin’s residence, has first place. This 
immense collection of manuscripts, books, prints, and maps 
originated in the Middle Ages as a royal library, but since the 
Revolution it has been a state institution. 

Paris is naturally a leading educational center. The fame 
of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as an art school attracts students 
of architecture, sculpture, and painting from all Schools 
countries. In the Latin Quarter, where many of 
them live and maintain their studios, stands the Sorbonne, 
founded in the thirteenth century and until the Revolution 
celebrated as a theological seminary. The French revolution¬ 
ists suppressed the institution, together with all other colleges 
and universities throughout France. Napoleon renewed it, 
however, and in its magnificent new building the Sorbonne has 
become the chief seat of learning in France. Not far away 
is the Palais de l’lnstitut, a seventeenth-century structure 

i See the illustration on page 350. 2 See the illustration on page 461. 


688 


Modern Civilization 


which houses the Institut de France, an association of the 
five French academies of letters and science. 

The drama has a large part in Parisian life, and several of the 
important theaters receive annual subsidies from 
the government. The Opera 1 is the largest and 
most splendid playhouse in the world. The Theatre Franjais, 


Theaters 



the home of the best French drama, was founded by Moliere in 
the seventeenth century, and here his comedies are still played. 

The tourist in Paris seldom omits a visit to the cemetery 
Pere-la- named after Pere la Chaise, the confessor of 

Chaise Louis XIV. It covers over a hundred acres and 

contains the tombs of many famous Frenchmen. 
Paris has always been a fortress. The present wall, replacing 

1 See the illustration on page 680. 








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690 


Modern Civilization 


suburbs of 
Paris 


earlier ramparts, completely surrounds the city. Through its 
gates run the main highways into the charming suburbs. One 
Walls and ma y visit Fontainebleau, Napoleon’s favorite resi¬ 
dence, where he abdicated in 1814, and the chateau 
of Malmaison, which he presented to Josephine after 
the divorce. Then there are St.-Denis, with its abbey-church, the 
burial place of the French kings; Sevres, with its manufactory 
of exquisite porcelain; and St.-Germain, once the dwelling of 
royalty and now a national museum. Above all there is Ver¬ 
sailles, twelve miles distant from Paris. 1 Here the Estates- 
General met in 1789 and began the Revolution; here William I 
of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor in 1871; and here 
in 1919 was signed the treaty which brought peace to a warring 
world. 

192 . Historic and Artistic London 

London, the ancient Londinium , seems to have been a British 
settlement before the Roman occupation of Britain in the 
British and ^ rst cent ury A - D - Under the Romans it was a 
place of some importance, to judge from the 
abundant remains which we possess. Ruins of 
the walls, of villas, and of a basilica are still to be seen, while 
thousands of coins have been found in the bed of the Thames. 

After the departure of the Romans from Britain, London 
came under the rule of the Anglo-Saxons and subsequently 
Medieval of the Danes. It had grown to be the metropolis 

London 0 f E ng i an( i by the time of the Norman Conquest. 

Both Norman and Plantagenet kings recognized the importance 
of London by granting charters of liberty to its inhabitants, 
and Magna Carta expressly stipulated that the city should 
continue to enjoy all its old privileges. 

The chief event in the history of London under the Tudors 
was the suppression of the monasteries and nunneries by 
Modern Henry VIII. More than half the area of the city 
London bad been occupied by these establishments, which 
were now adapted to secular uses. The Great Fire of 1666, early 

1 See the illustration, page 181. 


Roman 

London 


VIEW OF PARIS FROM AN AIRPLANE 
Copyright by Wide World Photos. 


























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Historic and Artistic London 691 

in the reign of Charles II, continued three days and licked up 
thirteen thousand houses — practically all that remained of the 
medieval city. Since the middle of the nineteenth century 
London has been much improved by rebuilding, the laying 
out of new streets and parks, and the erection of monuments. 
It still lacks the spaciousness, the elegance and charm, of Paris, 
but in historic interest, at least for English-speaking peoples, 
even surpasses the French capital. 

There are really three Londons. First comes the City 
proper, the commercial and financial heart of the metropolis. 
It stretches for about a mile along the north bank Extent of 
of the Thames and occupies the site of the Roman London 
town. Beyond the City spreads Metropolitan London, which 
is a circle with a radius of approximately twelve miles from its 
center at Charing Cross. Lastly, comes “ Greater London,” 
reaching out into several English counties and containing, 
with the City and the metropolitan boroughs, more than 
seven million inhabitants. 

The streets of London are innumerable. Straightened out 
and laid end to end, they would reach across the United States. 
The principal continuous thoroughfares, though Topography 
each bears a succession of names, coincide with of London 
the main roads converging upon the capital from all parts 
of England. The Thames follows a devious course through 
London. Its sides are lined with embankments used as prome¬ 
nades. Fourteen road bridges cross the river, including fam¬ 
ous London Bridge, which replaces a thirteenth-century 
structure. 

The parks are a notable feature in the topography of London. 
St. James’s Park was laid out by Charles II. At its western 
end rises Buckingham Palace, the London resi- PsiTks 
dence of royalty. Green Park extends between 
the Mall and Piccadilly. Hyde Park, which Henry VIII took 
over on the dissolution of the monasteries, forms a resort of 
fashionable society and often also the scene of popular demon¬ 
strations. Kensington Gardens and Regent’s Park are other 
open spaces. 



6^2 































































































































































































Historic and Artistic London 693 

The principal places of interest to the tourist he along the 
Thames from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey. 
Among secular buildings none is more venerable The Tower 
than the Tower, which stands at the eastern of London 
boundary of the City. WiUiam the Conqueror raised the 
great central keep or White Tower, so called because it was 
once whitewashed. The inner wall, with its thirteen turrets, 
was added by WiUiam Rufus, the Conqueror’s son, the moat 
by Richard I, and the outer wall by Henry III. The Tower 
has been a fortress, a palace, and a prison; it now serves as a 
government arsenal, historical museum, and repository for the 
crown jewels. 

From the Tower a short walk brings one to the Bank of 
England, a low, massive building without ex- Bank of 
ternal windows and almost wholly unadorned. England and 
The Guildhall, nearby, is used for meetings and Guildlia11 
entertainments of the City Corporation. 

London’s most prominent building, St. Paul’s Cathedral, 
stands in the center of the City, upon a site dedicated to religion 
since Anglo-Saxon times. The present edifice, re- st. Paul’s 
placing the cathedral destroyed by the Great Fire, Cathedral 
is the work of Sir Christopher Wren, who lies in the crypt, 
together with the duke of Wellington, Lord Nelson, and other 
famous Englishmen. In general appearance St. Paul’s re¬ 
sembles St. Peter’s at Rome, but it is much smaller. The 
style of architecture unites Gothic and classical features. The 
great dome, both from within and without, forms the most 
imposing feature of the cathedral. 

From St. Paul’s one may proceed along Fleet Street with 
its newspaper offices, and the Strand, with its hotels, 
shops, and theaters, to Trafalgar Square. The Trafalgar 
lofty monument in the center commemorates Square 
Nelson’s victory over the combined fleets of France and 
Spain. 

The National Gallery, containing magnificent art collections, 
is on the north side of Trafalgar Square. Some distance away 



St. Paul’s Cathedral 









































Historic and Artistic London 695 



is the British Museum, the most celebrated institution of its 

kind in the world. A single great building houses „ . 

the collections 6f books, manuscripts, coins, and Gallery and 

antiquities which have accumulated since the mu- ?J ltlsh 
. ...... . Museum 

seum was founded m the eighteenth century. 

The short street called 
Whitehall, containing the 

Admiralty, Houses of 
Treasury, Parliament 

and other government 
offices, leads from Tra¬ 
falgar Square to the 
Houses of Parliament. 

These buildings, as beau¬ 
tiful and impressive out¬ 
side as they are luxurious 
inside, were erected dur¬ 
ing the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury in the richest style 
of Tudor Gothic. They 
cover eight acres and in¬ 
clude eleven hundred 
rooms. The east front 
opens directly upon the 
Thames. Historic West¬ 
minster Hall, 1 belonging 
to the former royal pal¬ 
ace on the site, is incorpo¬ 
rated in the Parliament 
buildings. There are 
three towers: the Clock 
Tower, with the famous 
bell Big Ben, whose reso¬ 
nant note may be heard 
over the greater part of 
London; the Central Tower, used as a ventilating shaft; and 


The Nelson Monument, 
Trafalgar Square 

A granite Corinthian column, 145 feet high, sur¬ 
mounted by a statue of Nelson, 16 feet high. On 
the pedestal are bronze sculptures, cast with the 
metal of captured French cannon and representing 
scenes from Nelson’s naval victories. Four colossal 
lions, modeled by Sir Edwin Landseer, crouch at 
the base of the monument. 


1 See the illustration on page 163. 












696 


Modern Civilization 


* 



Westminster Abbey 






































































































































Historic and Artistic London 697 

the Victoria Tower. When Parliament is in session a light is 
shown in the Clock Tower by night and a flag flies from the 
Victoria Tower by day. 

The church formerly attached to the Benedictine abbey of 
St. Peter in Westminster was built in the thirteenth century, 
upon the site of an earlier church raised by Edward Westminster 
the Confessor. Since the Norman Conquest all Abbe y 
but one of the English sovereigns have been crowned here, and 



until the time of George III it served as their last resting place. 
The abbey is now England’s Hall of Fame, where many of her 
distinguished statesmen, warriors, poets, artists, and scientists 
are buried. Monuments, tombs, busts, and memorials crowd 
every part of a building that epitomizes English history. 

Studies 

1. What is the “international mind”? The “international conscience”? 
2. Look up in an encyclopedia accounts of the Rhodes Scholarships and the Nobel 
Prizes. 3. What arguments are often urged against capital punishment? 
4. Present some of the arguments for and against woman suffrage. 5. What is 
the work of the Rockefeller Foundation? Of the Carnegie Institution? 6. Name 
and locate ten of the great European universities. 7. Prepare an oral report on 












698 


Modern Civilization 

















































































































Historic and Artistic London 


699 

the kindergarten movement in Europe and America. 8. Show that religious 
toleration and an established church may exist side by side. 9. What have been 
some of the services of missionaries in geographical exploration? 10. Why has 
Darwin been called “the Newton of biology”? 11. Explain the germ theory of 
disease. 12. Distinguish between antisepsis and asepsis. 13. How are the X-rays 
used in medicine and surgery? 14. Mention some of the most famous novels by 
Dickens, Scott, and Thackeray. 15. Have you read any novels by Victor Hugo, 
Ibsen, Tolstoy, or Sienkiewicz? 16. Name six great lyric poets of Great Britain 
during the nineteenth century. Can you name any of France, Germany, and Italy? 
17. Mention some of the great composers of the nineteenth century. 18. On the 
maps (pages 689 and 698) locate the principal monuments and public buildings of 
Paris and London. 



The Lord Mayor’s Show in London 

After an eighteenth-century cartoon by W. Hogarth. 












CHAPTER XXVI 


INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 1871 - 1914 1 


193 . The Triple Alliance 

Modern civilization, which on the one side creates an inter¬ 
national current drawing the world’s peoples together in art, 
National literature, science, and industry, on the other side 
rivalries and creates a national current tending to keep them 
antipathies a p ar t. Internationalism or cosmopolitanism lays 
stress on our common humanity, on the brotherhood of man. 
Nationalism or patriotism emphasizes love of country and devo¬ 
tion to the “ fatherland.” National rivalries and antipathies 
were never stronger than in the- nineteenth century, and in the 
twentieth century they brought forth the calamitous World War. 

The national movement in Europe, we have learned, arose 
during the revolutionary and Napoleonic era, helped to pro- 
Primacy of duce ^ P 0 P u ^ ar revolts between 1815 and 1830, 
Germany on and assumed special importance between 1848 and 
1871, when both Italy and Germany won by the 
sword their long-desired unification. The creation 
of a united Italy, and especially of a united Germany, quite 
upset the delicate equilibrium of European politics as estab¬ 
lished at the Congress of Vienna. The old balance of power 
disappeared, for the German Empire, from the hour of its 
birth, took the first place on the Continent. 

Bismarck’s former policy of “ blood and iron ” had resulted 
in the wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. Now that 
Franco- Germany was “ satiated,” as he declared, he 

German became a man of peace. His policy, henceforth, 

hinged upon France. The catastrophe of the 
Franco-German War seemed to remove that country from the 

1 Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 28, “Peace Circular of Nicholas II, 1898” 
No. 29, “Final Act of the First Hague Peace Conference, 1899.” 

700 


the Con¬ 
tinent 


7oi 


The Triple Alliance 

ranks of the great powers, but she recovered rapidly under a 
republican government and soon paid off the indemnity im¬ 
posed upon her by the Treaty of Frankfort. But France was 
not reconciled to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, which deprived 
her of 1000 square miles of territory and more than 1,500,000 
inhabitants. 1 Their annexation kept alive the spirit of revenge 
in France and made her Germany’s irreconcilable enemy. To 
Bismarck it seemed that the French were only awaiting a 
favorable moment to renew the test of arms, an attitude ex¬ 
pressed by Gambetta’s motto, “ Think of it always and never 
speak of it.” The French in 1870-1871 had fought alone; 
should they secure the support of Austria-Hungary, Italy, or 
Russia, the issue of a second Franco-German War might be 
quite unlike that of the first. Accordingly, Bismarck did all 
he could to keep France friendless among the nations. 

The “ Iron Chancellor ” turned first to Austria-Hungary. He 
had prepared the way for good relations by his moderation in 
arranging terms of peace with Francis Joseph I 
at the close of the “ Seven Weeks’ War.” 2 After and y 
1871 the Hapsburgs began to seek compensation 
in the Balkans for the territory they had lost in 
Germany and Italy. Bismarck supported their pretensions at 
the Congress of Berlin. Here the “ honest broker,” as he called 
himself, successfully opposed the extension of Russian influence 
in the Balkan Peninsula and agreed to an Austrian occupation 
of the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 3 In 1879 
Germany and Austria-Hungary made a secret alliance binding 
themselves to aid each other if either should be attacked by 
Russia or by another power which had the help of Russia. 
It was also arranged that should either party to the alliance 
be attacked by another power without Russian support, then 
the other party would not only not assist the aggressor but 
would preserve at least benevolent neutrality. The secrecy 
attending this treaty was removed by its publication nine 
years later. 

Bismarck scored a further triumph in 1882, when he induced 

1 See pages 415-416. 2 See page 413. 3 See page 528. 


702 International Relations 

Italy to throw in her lot with Germany and Austria-Hungary, 
thus forming the Triple Alliance. Italy took this action, partly 
Germany to secure good friends on the Continent, but chiefly 
and Italy because of resentment against France, which had 
just established a protectorate over Tunis, a region marked 
for Italian colonization. 1 Rumania also joined the group of 
Central Powers in 1883. The terms of the treaties creating 

the Triple Alliance have never 
been fully disclosed, but they 
seem to have been purely defen¬ 
sive in character. The Triple 
Alliance continued unbroken un¬ 
til 1915, when Italy declared war 
against Austria-Hungary. Ru¬ 
mania repudiated it the following 
year, upon entering the World 
War. 

Bismarck also did his best to 
convince Russia of Germany’s 
Germany good will. During 
and Russia the ’eighties the two 
countries actually bound them¬ 
selves to benevolent neutrality 
in case one or the other should 
be assailed. This “ reinsurance 
compact ” was secretly signed in 
1884 and was renewed in 1887 for 
another period of three years. 
But William II, who forced Bismarck’s retirement in 1890, 2 
did not continue the friendly understanding with Russia. 
The kaiser seems to have believed that the Triple-Alli¬ 
ance sufficiently guaranteed the security of Germany and 
that the “ reinsurance compact ” would interfere with Ger¬ 
many’s obligations to Austria-Hungary, whose rivalry with 
Russia in the Balkans had now become more acute than « 
ever. 



“Dropping the Pilot” 


A cartoon by Sir John Tenniel which 
appeared in the English journal Punch 
for March 9. 1890. 


1 See page 541. 


2 See page 491. 





















































The Dual Alliance and Triple Entente 7°3 


194. The Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente 

The creation of the Triple Alliance was a challenge to France 
and Russia to form an opposing alliance. Bismarck’s diplomatic 
skill had postponed it as long as he remained Franco _ 
chancellor, but even before 1890 the two countries Russian 
had begun to draw together. An alliance between relations 
them long seemed improbable, in view of the fact that they 
had fought each other bitterly in the Napoleonic and Crimean 
wars and of the further fact that one was a revolutionary 
republic and the other a reactionary autocracy. International 
politics sometimes makes strange bedfellows, however. Feelings 
of both revenge and fear stirred France: revenge for the hu¬ 
miliating defeats of 1870-1871 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine; 
fear lest with the rapid increase of German wealth, population, 
and military power she might be suddenly attacked and over¬ 
whelmed by her Teutonic neighbor. Under Bismarck, Germany 
had pursued a peaceful policy; what would be her policy under 
the kaiser no one could say. In any case, mighty Russia 
seemed a most desirable ally. Russia, on her part, now realized 
more keenly the conflict between her interests in the Balkans 
and the interests of Germany’s ally, Austria-Hungary; she held 
Germany responsible for her failure at the Congress of Berlin; 
and she, too, felt alarm at the growing preponderance of Ger¬ 
many in European affairs. The time was obviously ripe for a 
Franco-Russian understanding. 

Close relations between France and Russia began in the 

financial sphere, when the tsar’s government, in order to build 

the Trans-Siberian Railway and develop Russian The Dual 

industries, sold large blocks of securities to French Alliance, 

0 1891 

investors. A secret treaty between the two 

countries was concluded in 1891 and was publicly announced 
four years later. The precise terms of the treaty are unknown. 
Apparently, France and Russia agreed that in case either 
nation was attacked, the other nation would come to its as¬ 
sistance and that peace should be made in concert. The Dual 
Alliance, like the Triple Alliance, thus appears to have been a 


7°4 


International Relations 


defensive undertaking on the part of the powers concerned. 
France no longer stood alone, and Germany on her eastern 
flank had a potential enemy. It was the “ nightmare coalition ” 
so feared by Bismarck. 

Ever since the Crimean War Great Britain had kept aloof 
from Continental entanglements. She was no friend either of 
Isolation France or Russia, for the colonial aspirations of 

Of Great these powers, the one in Africa and the other in 

Bntain Asia, clashed with her own. Lord Salisbury, 1 

Disraeli’s successor as leader of the Tory Party during the 

last two decades of 
the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury, continued the 
traditional Franco- 
phobe and Russo¬ 
phobe policies of 
the Tories. The 
strained relations 
between Great 
Britain and France 
almost resulted in 
hostilities, as late 
as 1898. In that 
year a French ex¬ 
ploring expedition 
entered the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan, 
which Great Brit¬ 
ain regarded as within her sphere of influence, and raised the tri¬ 
color at Fashoda on the upper Nile. The British government 
sent General Kitchener from Khartum to expel the intruders. 
War was in the air, until the French gave way and renounced 
their claims to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The “Fashoda 
incident ” roused much popular feeling in both France and 
Great Britain. As for Russia, her steady advance in Central 
Asia obviously threatened India and led British statesmen to 

1 Prime minister, 1885-1886, 1886-1892, and 1895-1902. 



The Marquis of Salisbury 



The Dual Alliance and Triple Entente 705 

regard that power with ill-concealed fear and distrust. In 
Kipling’s words Russia was “ a bear that walks like a man.” 

Toward Germany and the other members of the Triple 
Alliance the British attitude was most amicable throughout 
the period of Bismarck’s chancellorship. To Anglo _ 
avoid giving offense to Great Britain Bismarck German 
scrupulously observed Belgian neutrality during relations 
the war of 1870-1871, and for the same reason he long opposed 
the acquisition of colonies by Germany. The supposed kin¬ 
ship of Germans and Anglo-Saxons and the close connections 
of the German and British courts (William II was a grandson 
of Queen Victoria) also made for good relations between the 
two countries. Nevertheless, as the ’nineties advanced, Great 
Britain and Germany began to draw apart. One reason was 
the amazing industrial development of Germany, which by 
this time had made her a serious competitor of Great Britain 
in foreign markets. Another reason was the aggressive colonial 
policy of Germany and her apparent intention of founding a 
world empire rivaling that of Great Britain. The kaiser himself 
announced, in one of his rhetorical speeches, that “ without Ger¬ 
many and the German Empire ” no important step in interna¬ 
tional matters should be taken, even beyond the seas. But the 
most important reason was Germany’s declared purpose to build 
up a great navy as well as a great army. To the average Britisher 
the new German navy seemed a dagger pointed at his country’s 
heart. The sympathetic attitude of the kaiser and his associates 
toward the Boers, both before and during the South African 
War, further disturbed the serenity of Anglo-German relations. 

The early years of the twentieth century saw Great Britain 
emerge from her isolation, which some described as “ splendid ” 
but others as “ dangerous,” and seek new friend- Tfae 
ships on the Continent. The first step was recon- entente 
ciliation with France. The way for it had already ™^ iale » 
been prepared. Edward VII, who mounted the 
British throne in 1901, upon the death of Queen Victoria, 
showed a statesmanlike grasp of the situation and used all his 
personal influence to strengthen Great Britain abroad. He 


706 


International Relations 


knew and liked the French people, and they returned his ap¬ 
preciation. France, too, had in Theophile Delcasse a foreign 
minister anxious to establish friendly relations with her neighbor 
across the Channel. Official visits in 1903 of King Edward to 
Paris and of President Loubet to London were followed in 1904 
by a definite treaty between the two countries, adjusting their 
colonial claims. France recognized the paramount position of 

Great Britain in 
Egypt; Great Brit¬ 
ain gave to France 
a free hand in Mo¬ 
rocco. Conven¬ 
tions were also 
made relating to 
Siam, Newfound¬ 
land, and other 
regions. These 
agreements estab¬ 
lished a “ cor¬ 
dial understand¬ 
ing ” (entente cor- 
diale). It was not 
a formal alliance; 
it did not provide 
for military meas¬ 
ures, either of de¬ 
fense or of offense; nor did it have special reference to Ger¬ 
many or any other Continental power. The significance of 
the entente cordiale lay in the fact that it healed the ancient 
feuds between the two nations and prepared the way for their 
closer cooperation in the future. 

Three years later Great Britain and Russia, who for half a 
century had jealously watched each other’s expansion in Asia, 
The Triple composed their differences. The Anglo-Russian 
Entente, agreement, signed in 1907, was largely arranged by 
Sir Edward Grey, the British Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. It settled the troublesome questions relating to Persia, 



Edward VTl 


Colonial Problems 


707 


Afghanistan, and Tibet in a manner satisfactory to both powers. 1 
The entente cordiale thus became transformed into a Triple 
Entente, for Russia was already an ally of France. Japan, a 
British ally since 1902, 2 also reached an understanding with 
Russia in regard to their respective spheres of influence in the 
Far East. 

The change in international relations which between 1902 
and 1907 made Great Britain an actual ally of Japan and a 
potential ally of France and Russia, has been called The 
a diplomatic revolution. Its significance was not diplomatic 
lost on Germany. While British statesmen be- revolution 
lieved that they were only preparing defensive measures against 
a possible German attack, most Germans pictured Great 
Britain as plotting their country’s ruin. The rift between the 
two nations steadily widened; by 1914 it had become a chasm. 

Such, in outline, was the tangled skein of European diplomacy 
for nearly forty years following the Franco-German War. The 
Triple Alliance under Bismarck’s guidance domi- Balance of 
nated Europe without a competitor, until the P° wer 
creation of the Dual Alliance. Something like a balance of 
power then replaced the earlier primacy of Germany. The 
old coalition, however, continued to be far stronger than the 
new, until Great Britain aligned herself with France and Russia. 
Germany, resentful at what she described as the “ encirclement 
policy ” of her enemies, at the “ iron ring ”*which she professed 
to see being forged around her, now bent every effort to break 
up the Triple Entente by diplomatic action and by military 
threats. At the same time she tried to create a “ Middle 
Europe ” which, with its annexes in Asia, would effectually 
separate Great Britain and France from their Russian ally. 
These German projects raised new colonial problems and re~ 
opened the Eastern Question. 

195. Colonial Problems 

Something has been said in previous chapters about the 
Greater Europe which arose during the nineteenth and twentieth 

1 See pages 548 and 550. 2 See page 562. 


708 


International Relations 


centuries. European expansion went on most rapidly after 
1871, when one country after another endeavored to form an 
National- empire overseas. This new imperialism was espe- 
ism and dally fostered by the revival of national sentiment 
imperialism * n ]? uro p e> Both Italy and Germany wished to 
obtain colonial dependencies where their people could settle 
and maintain the language, customs, and traditions of the home 
land. France sought compensation for her “Lost Provinces” by 
acquiring African possessions. Russia, Japan, and the United 
States annexed additional territories. Great Britain, the leading 
colonial power in the world for more than a century, took re¬ 
newed pride in her dominions and prepared to extend them as 
occasion offered. European peoples could not compete for mar¬ 
kets, trading-posts, spheres of influence, protectorates, and colo¬ 
nies in every part of the world without becoming as bitter rivals 
abroad as they were at home. Imperialism, as well as nation¬ 
alism, thus sowed the seeds of future conflict between them. 

A late-comer in the family of nations, Germany found that 
the best regions for colonization in the temperate zone already 
Germany’s belonged to other powers. The colonies which 
“ place in she acquired in Africa and Oceania did not attract 
settlers, provided no important markets, and im¬ 
posed a heavy burden on the imperial treasury for mainte¬ 
nance. If Germany was to secure “a place in the sun,” 1 it 
could only be at the expense of other countries and by reliance 
upon “the good German sword.” 2 William II made prepara¬ 
tions for the partition of China, but the uprising of the Chinese 
under the “Boxers” led to the abandonment of this enterprise. 
He tried to get a foothold in South America by sending his 
warships to demand from Venezuela the payment of German 
debts, only to be pulled up sharply by President Roosevelt, who 
concentrated the American fleet in the West Indies and in¬ 
voked the Monroe Doctrine. Not more successful was the 
kaiser’s policy in Morocco. 

Morocco at the beginning of the twentieth century was a 
Moslem state inhabited by half-civilized and very unruly 
1 The kaiser’s phrase (1901). 2 The crown prince’s phrase (1913). 


The Eastern Question 


709 


tribes. The rich natural resources of the country and its 
proximity to Algeria made it an inviting field for French ex¬ 
pansion. Germany also had some economic in- p . t 
terests there. William II precipitated the first Moroccan 

Moroccan crisis, at a time when Russia, the ally of crisis > 

^ , , . • 1 T ’ TT ** . , 1905-1906 

r ranee, was involved in war with Japan. He paid 

a visit to the native ruler, openly flouted the French claims, 
and asserted in vigorous language the independence of Morocco. 
France could not afford to accept the challenge thus flung in 
her face and agreed to submit the Moroccan question to an 
international conference, which met at Algeciras, Spain, in 
1906. The assembled powers prohibited the annexation of 
Morocco, but left France free to continue her policy of “ peace¬ 
ful penetration.” The outcome of the conference thus proved 
disappointing to the kaiser. 

Germany soon found another occasion to test the strength 
of the Anglo-French entente. Owing to the anarchy in Morocco, 
a French army had occupied the capital (Fez). Second 
The kaiser at once dispatched a warship to Agadir Moroccan 
on the Moroccan coast as a notice to France to cnsis ’ 1911 
withdraw her troops. Feeling mounted high in both countries, 
and Europe for the moment seemed to be on the verge of the 
long-dreaded war. Great Britain, however, made common 
cause with France, for Agadir in German hands and converted 
into a naval base would have formed a palpable threat' to 
British trade routes in the Atlantic. Germany now decided to 
yield. She agreed to the establishment of a French protectorate 
over Morocco, accepting as compensation some territory in the 
French Congo. This “Agadir incident” further embittered in¬ 
ternational relations. The French regarded their Congo cession 
as so much blackmail levied by Germany; the Germans looked 
upon Great Britain’s support of France as an unwarranted in¬ 
terference which had inflicted upon them a diplomatic defeat. 


196. The Eastern Question 

Bismarck had treated the whole Eastern Question with 
contempt, declaring it “not worth the bones of a single 


710 


International Relations 


Pomeranian grenadier.” Under William II, however, Ger¬ 
many managed to supplant Great Britain as the protector 
Germany of the Ottoman Empire against Russia. The 
and Turkey kaiser twice visited the sultan, 1 a bloodthirsty 
despot whose massacres of Bulgarians and Armenians had 



The Berlin to Bagdad Railway 


aroused the horror of Christian Europe, and ostentatiously 
proclaimed himself the champion of all Moslems, the ally of 
Allah. “ The three hundred million Mohammedans who live 
scattered over the globe may be assured of this, that the Ger- 

1 Abdul Hamid II (“Abdul the Damned”), 1876-1909. See page 529. 









The Eastern Question 711 

man Emperor will be their friend at all times,” said William II 
in 1898. 

Germany now began the “ peaceful penetration ” of Asiatic 
Turkey. The fertile regions of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, 
sparsely settled and undeveloped, offered many The Bagdad 
opportunities for the investment of German capi- Railway 
tal, markets for German goods, and homes for the superfluous 
population of Germany. Economic exploitation was to be 
followed by military and political control of the Ottoman 
Empire, with Germany in command of the Turkish armies 
and supreme throughout the wide area from the Black Sea to 
the Indian Ocean. All these dazzling possibilities were fore¬ 
shadowed in the scheme for a railway intended to unite Con¬ 
stantinople with Bagdad and the head of the Persian Gulf. 
Nearly all the line as far as Bagdad had been completed by the 
opening of the World War. German capitalists also began to 
construct a branch line running from Aleppo in Syria to Medina 
and Mecca in Arabia. It is obvious that the Bagdad Railway, 
with its connections, menaced the position of Great Britain 
in India and British control of Egypt and the Suez Canal. 

The practical annexation of Asiatic Turkey formed only a part 
of the kaiser’s ambitious policy. European Turkey, the Balkan 
states, and Austria-Hungary were to unite with “Middle 
Germany into a huge combination for purposes of Eur °P e ” 
offense and defense. “ Middle Europe ” might ultimately draw 
within its embrace Holland, the Scandinavian states, and a pro¬ 
jected Polish kingdom to include almost the entire manufactur¬ 
ing area of Russia. German commerce would exploit and 
German militarism would dominate every one of these countries. 

The success of the “ Middle Europe ” project depended 
upon the attitude of the independent Christian states of the 
Balkans. It was essential that they should be _ 

Germany 

amenable to German, or at least to Austro-Hun- and the 
garian, influence and that the influence of Russia 
should be entirely eliminated from their councils. 

Dynastic relationships seemed to make this possible. Prince 
(afterwards Tsar) Ferdinand of Bulgaria was a German; King 


712 


International Relations 


First 

Balkan 

crisis, 

1908 


Charles of Rumania was the kaiser’s kinsman; and the wife 
of the future King Constantine of Greece was the kaiser’s 
sister. Even Serbia had a pro-Austrian ruler until 1903, when 
a revolution of Belgrade brought to the throne King Peter, 
who leaned toward Russia. The Balkan policy of the Central 
Powers consequently received a setback, for Serbia lay on the 
line of the railway from Berlin to Constantinople. 

Events now moved rapidly in the Balkans. Taking advan¬ 
tage of the Young Turk Revolution, 1 Austria-Hungary in 1908 
proceeded to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
These two provinces had been freed from the 
direct control of the Turks by Serbia and Russia, 
during the Russo-Turkish War of the seventies, 
but the Congress of Berlin had handed them over to Austria- 
Hungary to occupy and administer. 2 Their annexation, violating 
the Berlin settlement, raised a storm of protest in Serbia. The 
people of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Slavs, and Serbia ex¬ 
pected some day to incorporate them and the Montenegrins 
in a south Slavic state to stretch from the Danube to the Adri¬ 
atic. Russia also seethed with indignation at what she con¬ 
sidered an affront to the Slavic race by a Teutonic power. 
Russian troops now began to move toward the Austrian border. 
At this moment Germany ranged herself by the side of Austria- 
Hungary “ in shining armor,” as the kaiser afterwards expressed 
it, and dared Russia to attack her ally. Both France and Great 
Britain refused to join Russia in a general European war, and 
that country, not yet recovered from the struggle with Japan, 
thereupon gave way, withdrew her support from Serbia, and 
looked on in deep humiliation while the Central Powers pro¬ 
ceeded to reap the fruits of their diplomatic triumph. 

The First Balkan War (1912-1913) produced another inter- 
Second national crisis. Early in the course of the struggle 

Balkan the Serbians seized Durazzo, a port in the Turkish 

province of Albania, in order to gain access to the 
Adriatic. The Montenegrins also captured Scutari, 
another important Albanian town. Austria-Hungary would 


crisis, 

1912-1913 


1 See pages 529-530. 


See page 528. 


Militarism 


7 i 3 

not consent to these annexations, which barred her own ex¬ 
pansion £0 the southeast, and demanded that Durazzo and 
Scutari be evacuated. Germany, as before, backed her ally. 
A general European war again seemed very near, until Serbia and 
Montenegro yielded to the pressure put upon them by the great 
powers and gave up their conquests. The result was the forma¬ 
tion of a new Albanian state with a German prince as its ruler 
and under German influence. The Central Powers had won 
a second diplomatic triumph in the Balkans. 

The outcome of the Second Balkan War (1913), however, 
profoundly disappointed the Central Powers. The Treaty of 
Bukharest 1 left Germany’s vassal, Turkey, with The Balkan 
only a footing in Europe; it humiliated Bulgaria, situation 
the friend of Austria-Hungary; and it planted a in 1913 
hostile Serbia squarely in Macedonia, where she blocked the 
“ Middle Europe ” scheme. Even before the treaty had been 
signed, Austria-Hungary made ready to attack Serbia, but held 
her hand when Italy refused to cooperate, on the ground that 
the terms of the Triple Alliance required its members to aid 
each other only in the case of a defensive war. Germany also 
seems to have dissuaded Austria-Hungary from undertaking her 
perilous adventure in 1913. The hour had not yet struck to 
precipitate a European conflict. Meanwhile,, the Central 
Powers feverishly hastened military preparations, and the other 
countries, seeing the war clouds on the horizon, likewise took 
steps to increase their arms and armies. 

197. Militarism 

Between 1871 and 1914 there were wars in the Balkans, in 
Asia, and in Africa. The nations of western Europe, however, 
did not draw the sword against one another for “Armed 
more than forty years. Yet at no other period peace ” 
had there been such enormous expenditures for armaments, 
such huge standing armies, and such colossal navies. Western 
Europe enjoyed peace, but it was an “ armed peace ” based 
upon fear. 


1 See page 530. 


7 i 4 


International Relations 


New means 
of des¬ 
truction 


The improvements in weapons after 1871 made warfare a 
branch of applied science requiring expert technical knowledge 
both on the battle-field and in the munition fac¬ 
tory. One needs only refer to the breech-loading 
rifle, machine gun, and smokeless powder, together 
with the continuous enlargement of cannon and the use of long- 
range, high-explosive projectiles. In death-dealing efficiency 
these new means of destruction threw all previous inventions 
into the shade. Having created modern civilization, science 
seemed ready to destroy it. 

The changed methods of fighting demanded the “ nation in 
arms,” rather than the old-fashioned armies composed of 
Standing volunteers and mercenaries. As early as the 

armies eighteenth century, European monarchs began 

to draft soldiers from among their subjects, but at first only 
artisans and peasants. During the revolutionary era France 
resorted to forced levies, allowing, however, many exemptions. 
Prussia went further during the Napoleonic era and adopted 
universal military service, as well in time of peace as in time 
of war. All able-bodied men were to receive several years’ 
training in the army and then pass into the reserve, whence 
they could be called to the colors upon the outbreak of hos¬ 
tilities. This Prussian system, having proved its worth in the 
War of Liberation against Napoleon, 1 was extended by Wil¬ 
liam I soon after his accession to the throne. 2 The speedy 
triumphs of Prussia in 1866 and 1870 led all the principal 
nations, except Great Britain, to adopt universal military 
service. Europe thus became an “ armed camp,” with five 
million men constantly under arms. 

Great Britain found sufficient protection in her fleet, which 
it had long been the British policy to maintain at a strength at 
Navies least equal to that of any two other powers. Her 

widespread empire depends upon control of the 
seas, and being no longer self-supporting, she would face starva¬ 
tion in time of war were she blockaded by an enemy. Germany, 
however, would not acquiesce in British maritime supremacy, 

1 See page 345. 2 See pages 409-410. 


Militarism 


7 i 5 

and under the inspiration of the kaiser, who declared that the 
“ trident must be in our hands,” started in 1898 to build a 
mighty navy. Helgoland, 1 off the mouth of the Elbe, was 
converted into a naval base, a second Gibraltar. The Kiel 
Canal, originally completed in 1896, was enlarged in 1914 to 
allow the passage of the largest warships between the Baltic 
and the North Sea. Great Britain watched these preparations 
with unconcealed dismay. Her answer was the complete re¬ 
organization of the British fleet, the scrapping of nearly two 
hundred vessels as obsolete, and the laying-down of dread¬ 
noughts and super-dreadnoughts. The naval rivalry threatened 
to become so enormously expensive that British statesmen 
twice proposed a “ naval holiday,” that is, an agreement to 
keep down the rate of increase. But Germany refused to enter 
into an arrangement which would have left Great Britain still 
mistress of the seas. 

The crushing burden of standing armies and navies pro¬ 
duced a popular agitation in many countries to abolish warfare. 
The movement took practical shape as the result p 
of a proposal by Nicholas II for an international rescript of 
conference, which should arrange a general dis- ^^ olas n » 
armament. The tsar’s rescript of 1898 was a 
telling indictment of militarism in these words: “ The preserva¬ 
tion of peace has been put forward as the object of international 
policy. In its name the great states have concluded between 
themselves powerful alliances; the better to guarantee peace, 
they have developed their military forces in proportions hitherto 
unprecedented, and still continue to increase them without 
shrinking from any sacrifice. All these efforts, nevertheless, 
have not yet been able to bring about the beneficent results of 
the desired pacification. ... In proportion as the armaments 
of each power increase, do they less and less fulfill the objects 
which the governments have set before themselves. Eco¬ 
nomic crises, due in great part to the system of armaments & 
outrance 2 and the continual danger which lies in this accumu- 

1 Acquired by Great Britain in 1815 and ceded to Germany in 1890. 

2 “To the utmost.” 


716 International Relations 

lation of war material, are transforming the 'armed peace’ of 
our days into a crushing burden which the peoples have 
more and more difficulty in bearing.” 



A cartoon that appeared in Punch, February 26, 1913. 

As the result of the tsar’s rescript, delegates from twenty-six 
sovereign states met in 1899 at The Hague, Holland, in the 
Peace First Peace Conference. A Second Peace Con- 

conferences ference of forty-four states assembled in 1907. At¬ 
tempts were made at these gatherings to mitigate the horrors 
of future wars, but every proposal to reduce armaments en¬ 
countered the opposition of Germany, who would not abandon 
her schemes for conquest, first in Europe and ultimately 





Pan-Germanism 


7 i 7 

throughout the world, which are summed up in one word — 
Pan-Germanism. 


198. Pan-Germanism 

The material development of Germany between 1871 and 1914 
was perhaps unparalleled in European history. Her popula¬ 
tion increased from forty-one to sixty-five millions; Kultur and 
her foreign trade more than trebled; and she be- nationalism 
came an industrial state second in Europe only to Great Britain. 
Proud of their army, navy, and police, of their handsome, well- 
ordered cities, of their technical schools and universities, of 
their science, literature, music, and art, the Germans came to 
believe that they enjoyed a higher culture ( Kultur ) than any 
other people. The Russians, by comparison, were barbarians, 
the French and Italians decadent; and the British and Ameri¬ 
cans, mere money-grabbers. “ We are the salt of the earth,” 
the kaiser told his countrymen. Such ideas found a fertile 
soil in the exaggerated nationalism which had been fostered by 
the creation of the German Empire. 

The ardent belief in the superiority of German Kultur 
seemed to impose the duty of extending it to alien and 
therefore inferior peoples. This was Germany’s Kultur and 
divine mission, according to her philosophers, imperialism 
historians, clergymen, and government officials. Even the 
kaiser could say in all seriousness that “ God has called us 
to civilize the world; we are the missionaries of human 
progress ” and that “ our German nation shall be the rock of 
granite on which the Almighty will finish his work of civilizing 
the world.” 

Before the world could be remade upon the German model, 
it had to be first conquered. Both backward and “ decadent ” 
nations possessed their own standards of civiliza- Kultur and 
tion, which they would not willingly abandon militarism 
even for Germany’s so-called beneficent Kultur. World- 
power, in fact, meant war. Accordingly, the leaders of German 
society labored in press and school and pulpit to prove that war 
is a holy and righteous thing; that it corresponds in the fife of 


7 i8 


International Relations 


nations to the “ struggle for existence ” in animal life; and that 
by war the weaker, incompetent states are weeded out and 
room is made for those stronger, more efficient states which 
alone deserve to inherit the earth. At the same time the people 
were led to consider war inevitable because of the hostile at¬ 
titude of Russia, the “ Slavic peril ”; because France wanted 
revenge for her “ Lost Provinces ”; and because Great Britain 
only awaited a favorable opportunity to take the German navy 
and stifle German commerce. It was taught that Germany 
ought not to delay until her enemies were ready for a combined 
attack; she should attack first and reap the advantage of her 
military preparedness. This idea of an offensive-defensive 
war particularly appealed to a people who owed their national 
greatness to successful conflicts deliberately incurred by un¬ 
scrupulous rulers. 

The autocratic nature of the German government, vesting 
the control of foreign affairs so largely with the emperor, 1 
The made the egotistical, domineering personality of 

kaiser William II a very important factor in the inter¬ 

national situation. The kaiser inherited the warlike traditions 
of the Great Elector, Frederick the Great, and William I; and 
even the shadowy claims to universal dominion put forth 
during the Middle Ages by the Holy Roman Emperors. His 
public utterances for thirty years were a constant glorification 
of war and conquest. One of his first speeches after mounting 
the throne had an ominous sound: “ I solemnly vow always to 
be mindful of the fact that the eyes of my ancestors are looking 
down upon me from the other world, and that one day I shall 
have to render to them an account both of the glory and the 
honor of the army.” On another occasion he said: “ It is the 
soldiers and the army, not parliamentary majorities, that have 
welded the German Empire together. My confidence rests 
upon the army.” And in 1900, upon the departure of a German 
expedition for operations against the “ Boxers,” 2 he told the 
troops: “ When you come upon the enemy, no quarter will be 
given. No prisoners will be taken. As the Huns under their 

1 See page 484. 2 See pages 557-558. 


Pan-Germanism 


719 


king, Attila, a thousand years ago, made a name for them¬ 
selves which is still mighty in tradition and story, so may the 
name of Germany in China be kept alive through you in such 
wise that no Chinese will ever again attempt even to look 
askance at a German.” 

During the earlier years of his reign the kaiser seemed to find 
sufficient outlet for his restless energy in the development of 
Germany. The task lost its novelty and interest The Pan _ 
after a time, and he turned his uneasy gaze outside German 
the empire to the aggrandizement of Germany League 
abroad. More and more he came to be in sympathy with the 
aggressive policies advocated by the German militaristic class. 
It included the army and navy officers, both active and re¬ 
tired; the large landowners {Junkers)) the merchant princes, 
bankers, and manufacturers; the university professors, dip¬ 
lomats, and higher government officials — all, in short, who ex¬ 
pected to profit from a greater and enormously more wealthy 
Germany. These men organized in 1890 the Pan-German 
League, which soon became the most powerful political or¬ 
ganization in the empire. 

“ We ought not to forget,” declared the official circular of 
the league, “ that beyond the boundary lines compassed by the 
black-red-and-white flag thousands of Germans The Pan _ 
reside.” Holland, the Flemish part of Belgium, German 
the German part of Switzerland, possibly Den- P rogram 
mark, Norway, and Sweden, certainly Austria and the Baltic 
provinces of Russia were all to be absorbed in a bigger Ger¬ 
many. For the Pan-Germans the day of little peoples was 
over. 

The Pan-Germans thought that they could conquer Europe, 
nation by nation. They expected to overwhelm France by a 
sudden blow, capture Paris, seize the former The Pan _ 
Franche Comte and what remained of French German 
Lorraine, 1 together with the Channel ports, take plot 
the French colonies, and levy an indemnity large enough to 
pay the expenses of the war. Then they intended to turn 

1 Once part of the Holy Roman Empire. See page 185. 


720 


International Relations 


against Russia and annex her Polish and Baltic provinces. 
Their Austrian ally, meanwhile, would overrun Serbia and open 
the German “ corridor ” to the Orient. Once mistress of the 
Continent, Germany might look forward confidently to the 
issue of a future struggle with Great Britain and the British 
Empire for the dominion of the world. 

Every preparation was made, every precaution was taken, 
to ensure a prompt, decisive victory. By the summer of 1914, 
“ The a special war tax, to be expended on fortifications 

Day ” and equipment, had been collected. The army 

had been much increased. Enormous stocks of munitions had 
been accumulated. The Kiel Canal had been reconstructed. 
Strategic railways leading to the Belgian, French, and Russian 
frontiers had been laid down. All things were ready for “ The 
Day.” 


- Studies 

1. Explain the following: (a) entente cordiale; ( b ) the “Lost Provinces”; 
(c) “Middle Europe”; (d) “Agadir incident”; and (e) “reinsurance compact.” 
2. Find illustrations in the history of Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth 
centuries of the principle of the balance of power. 3. “The Franco-German War 
of 1870-1871 was the starting-point of a new era in European diplomacy.” Com¬ 
ment on this statement. 4. How was Alsace-Lorraine the “open sore” of European 
politics after 1871? 5. “The history of Europe in recent years often has hinged 
upon such remote points as a railroad in Asia Minor, or a protectorate in northern 
Africa, or a harbor in China.” Comment on this statement. 6. How would you 
define (a) militarism and ( b ) imperialism, as these terms have been used in the 
present chapter? 7. “England’s navy is a necessity; Germany’s a luxury.” Ex¬ 
plain this statement. 8. What is the strategic value of the Kiel Canal? 9. Write 
a brief character sketch of the kaiser on the basis of the quotations from his speeches 
in this chapter. 10. Why has war been called the “national industry” of Prussia? 
11. Point out on the map the European countries included in the Pan-German 
program. 



20° Longitude West 10° _0^_10° Longitude 20° East from 30° Greenwich 











































































































■ 

i - ( • r j 

































































CHAPTER XXVII 

THE WORLD WAR, 1914-1918 1 
199. Beginning of the War, 1914 

“The Day” soon dawned. On June 28, 1914, the archduke 
Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and his wife 
were assassinated at Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The 
The two murderers, who were Bosnians and there- Sarajevo 
fore Austrian subjects, belonged to a Serbian secret assassmatl0n 
society which aimed to separate Bosnia and Herzegovina from 
the Dual Monarchy and add them to Serbia. The Austrian 
government, after conducting an investigation, alleged that they 
had been aided by Serbian officials, with the connivance of the 
government of Serbia. This accusation has never been proved. 
No doubt exists, however, that the Sarajevo assassination was 
a political crime, the natural outcome of the propaganda 
among the South Slavs (Jugoslavs) for the expulsion of Austria 
from the Balkans as she had been expelled from Italy and 
Germany. 

Nearly a month passed. Then on July 23 Austria-Hungary 
sent a note to Serbia, harsh, peremptory, and, except in name, 
an ultimatum. It demanded that Serbia suppress ultimatum 
anti-Austrian publications and organizations, dis- t0 Serbia 
miss from the army or the civil service all those implicated in 
the anti-Austrian propaganda, eliminate anti-Austrian teachers 
and textbooks from the public schools, and consent to “the 
collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the Austro-Hun¬ 
garian government for the suppression of the subversive move- 


1 Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xxxv, “Diplomacy 
of the Great War.” Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 31, “Wilson’s Fourteen 
Points, 1918”; No. 32, “Declaration of Independence of the Czecho-Slovak Nation, 
1918.” 


721 


722 


The World War 


ment directed against the territorial integrity of the monarchy.” 
Forty-eight hours only were granted for the unconditional ac¬ 
ceptance or rejection of the ultimatum. 

Serbia replied on July 25. She agreed to all the Austrian 
demands except those which required the presence on Serbian 
Serbia’s soil °f representatives of the Dual Monarchy, 

repty Such an arrangement, Serbia pointed out, would 

violate her rights as a sovereign state —• would make her, in 
fact, an Austrian vassal. She concluded by offering to submit 
the entire dispute to arbitration by the international tribunal 
at The Hague or to the mediation of the great powers. Austria- 
Hungary rejected the Serbian reply as unsatisfactory and on 
July 28 declared war upon her little neighbor. 

Russia, the protector of the Slavs of the Balkans, could not 
look on without concern while a great Teutonic power destroyed 
_ _ the independence of a Slav state. But if Russia 

Ineffective _ ^ 

peace intervened to aid Serbia, by making war on Austria- 

proposais Hungary, then Germany, as the latter’s ally, would 
surely attack Russia; and France, bound to Russia in firm 
alliance, would be obliged to attack Germany. Efforts to pre¬ 
serve the peace of Europe began at once. The Triple Entente 
first asked Austria-Hungary to extend the time limit for the 
answer from Serbia. Austria-Hungary declined to do so. 
Great Britain and France then urged Serbia to make her answer 
to the ultimatum as conciliatory as possible. After the Serbian 
reply had been delivered, Great Britain, through Sir Edward 
Grey, Minister for Foreign Affairs, suggested that the four great 
powers not directly involved should hold a conference in London 
to adjust the Austro-Serbian difficulty. France, Italy, and 
Russia accepted the suggestion. Germany rejected it, saying 
that she could have nothing to do with bringing her ally before 
a European tribunal. Finally, Great Britain invited Germany 
herself to propose some method of mediation, but the German 
government declared that the whole dispute concerned only 
Austria-Hungary and Serbia and that Russia should not inter¬ 
fere in it. If Russia did interfere, Germany would back her 
ally. 


Beginning of the War 


723 


We know now why these and other peace proposals during 
that last fateful week of July, 1914, were ineffective. Austria- 
Hungary and Germany had already decided upon 
aggressive action against Serbia. Their reason Austria- ° f 
was the situation in the Balkans. The First and Hungary and 
Second Balkan Wars 1 had brought an enormous Germany 
accession of strength to Serbia and Montenegro, whose people 
now looked forward with increasing assurance to the liberation 
of their brothers in the Jugoslav provinces of the Austrian 
Empire. 2 This situation, threatening the integrity of the 
Empire, threw the Viennese diplomats into a state of panic so 
great that they actually drafted and presented a memorandum 
to Berlin, on the necessity of crushing Serbia, before the assassi¬ 
nation of the archduke. The assassination only supplied a 
convenient pretext for the punitive measures which had already 
been decided upon by the Austrian government. The German 
government sanctioned these measures in advance, without, 
apparently, being aware of their exact nature. The kaiser and 
his advisers thus gave Austria a “blank check” to be filled in 
as Austria pleased. 

How it was filled in we also know now. The present republi¬ 
can government of Austria published in the latter part of 1919 
an official volume 3 of documents found in the ar- The « blank 
chives of the former imperial government, from check” 
which it appears that a ministerial meeting held in Vienna, 
July 7, 1914, took the momentous decision to force war on 
Serbia. This was to be done by sending a note with such im¬ 
possible demands that the Serbian government would be com¬ 
pelled to reject them. An Austro-Hungarian declaration of 
war would then follow in due course. The Foreign Minister, 
Count Berchtold, who presided at the meeting and afterward 
signed the note to Serbia, declared to the ministers that the 
kaiser had “emphatically” assured him of the “unconditional 


1 See pages 530 - 53 1 and 712-713. 

2 See page 497 and the map on page 498. 

3 Diplomatic Documents on the Antecedents of the War of 1914, Part I, Vienna, 1919. 
State Printing Office. 


7 2 4 


The World War 


support of Germany in case of a warlike complication with 
Serbia.” Germany was thus prepared to support Austria- 
Hungary to the uttermost. 

One of the most severe indictments of Austro-German policy 
in 1914 came from no less a personage than Prince Lichnowsky, 
„ . who was the ambassador of Germany to Great 

Lichnowsky’s Britain before the outbreak of the conflict. His 
memorandum memorandum, prepared originally for private circu¬ 
lation among friends but afterward published in 1918, declared 
that “we” encouraged Count Berchtold to attack Serbia, al¬ 
though no German interest was involved; that when Russia 
emphatically declared that Serbia must not be overrun “we” 
rejected the British proposals for mediation, although Serbia 
had accepted almost the whole ultimatum; and that “we” 
replied to Russia’s mere mobilization by a declaration of war, 
thus deliberately destroying all possibility of a peaceful settle¬ 
ment. “In view of these indisputable facts, it is not surprising 
that the whole civilized world outside Germany attributes to 
us the sole guilt for the World War.” 

The international situation in the summer of 1914 clearly 
favored aggressive action by the Central Powers. Each of the 
. , Entente Powers faced serious domestic difficulties. 

The inter¬ 
national Russia was embarrassed by industrial troubles 

situation culminating in the proclamation of a general strike 
and preparations for street fighting in the capital. France was 
disturbed by popular opposition to a ne^ law which extended 
military service from two to three years. Even Great Britain 
apparently stood on the brink of civil conflict in Ireland. If 
war was to come, it could not come at a better time for the 
Central Powers than the summer of 1914. 

Russia had yielded to the Central Powers in the Balkan 
crises of 1908 and 1912-1913. Would she yield once more in 
Attitude of I 9 I 4 ? The Central Powers apparently believed 
Russia that she would do so, when confronted with the 

grim prospect of war. The tsar’s government, however, dis¬ 
appointed their calculations of an easy diplomatic victory. As 
soon as news came that the Austrians were attacking Serbia, 


Beginning of the War 


725 


Russia started a partial mobilization of her armies along the 
Austrian frontier. This was soon extended into a general 
mobilization upon the entire western border of the Russian 
Empire. Russia thus served notice on the Central Powers that 
she would fight rather than look on supinely while they deprived 
Serbia of independence and annihilated Russian influence in 
southeastern Europe. War, if it broke out, was not to be 
“localized” in the Balkans. 

Russian mobilization provided the leaders of the German war 
party with the pretext that was essential to them. They must 
not allow Russia to gain while peace continued an Germany at 
advantage that might prove disastrous to Germany war with 
after hostilities began. If Germany were to take Russia 
up arms, she must reap the full advantage of her military pre¬ 
paredness ; she could not afford to wait until her slower-moving 
antagonist had brought gigantic forces into the field. The 
kaiser’s government, accordingly, sent an ultimatum to Russia 
ordering that country to start demobilization within twelve 
hours or accept the consequences (July 31). Russia did not 
reply to this peremptory demand. The kaiser, exercising his 
right to make “defensive warfare,” immediately signed the 
document declaring that a state of hostilities existed between 
Germany and Russia (August 1). 

Asked by Germany what was to be her attitude in the coming 
struggle, France replied that she “would do that which her in¬ 
terests dictated,” and began to mobilize. Ger- Germany 
many then declared war on France (August 3). at war with 
It is now known 1 that had France decided to re¬ 
main neutral, repudiating her treaty with Russia, the German 
government intended to demand the surrender of the fortresses 
of Toul and Verdun as a pledge of French neutrality until 
the close of the war. Germany thus showed herself so anxious 
to embroil France in the conflict that she made demands 
which that country could not and was not expected to accept. 

Germany also tried to learn the attitude of Great Britain. 

1 Revelations of M. Pinchon, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at the Sorbonne, Paris, 
March 1, 1918. 


726 


The World War 


The German Chancellor, Rethmann-Hollweg, promised that if 
Great Britain would stand aloof, Germany would agree not to 

take any European territory from France, but he 
Attitude J . 

of Great refused to give assurances as to the French colonies. 

Britain gj r Edward Grey retorted that Great Britain 

could never conclude such a disgraceful bargain with Germany 
at the expense of France. The British Foreign Minister, how¬ 
ever, made it clear that Great 
Britain would not be drawn 
into a Franco-German War 
unless France and Russia re¬ 
jected “any reasonable pro¬ 
posal” for peace put forward 
by the Central Powers. After 
the German declaration of war 
on Russia and the German 
invasion of neutral Luxem¬ 
burg, 1 Great Britain promised 
France the help of the British 
fleet in case the German fleet 
operated against the unpro¬ 
tected western coast of Franee. 
The British government felt 
that it could not do less, for, in 
accordance with the Anglo- 
French entente , France since 1912 had concentrated her fleet in 
the Mediterranean so that the British fleet might' be concen¬ 
trated in the North Sea against the possibly hostile German navy. 

The neutrality of Belgium was guaranteed by the European 
powers, including France and Prussia, both in 1831 and 1839; 2 
__ , , furthermore, the Second Peace Conference in 1007, 

Belgian with Germany consenting, expressly declared the 

neutrality territory of neutral states to be inviolable. The 

French government on 'August 1 announced its intention to 
respect Belgian neutrality. The next day, however, Germany 
addressed a note to Belgium demanding permission to move 

1 See page 374 and note 1. 2 See page 374. 



William II 


Beginning of the War 


727 


troops across the country into France and threatening, in case 
of a refusal, to leave Belgium’s fate to the “ decision of arms.” 
The Belgian government, under King Albert, declined to “sacri¬ 
fice the honor of the nation and betray its duty toward Europe.” 
On August 4 the German army invaded Belgium. Bethmann- 
Hollweg frankly admitted before the Reichstag, the same day, 
that the invasion was “a breach of international law,” — 
“necessity knows no law,” said Bethmann-Hollweg — and the 
kaiser, in a cable message to President Wilson, 1 acknowledged 
that Belgian neutrality “had to be violated by Germany on 
strategical grounds.” 

An invasion of Belgium was, in fact, vital to the success of 
the German plan of campaign, which involved a swift, crushing 

blow at the French before Russian mobilization x . 

Strategic 

could be completed. No rapid movement against importance 
France was possible from the east, first, because ofBel s ium 
the high bluffs and narrow river valleys in this part of the 
country made defense easy; and, second, because the eastern 
frontier had been protected, since the Franco-German War, 
by fortresses all the way from Verdun to Belfort. An attack 
from the northeast presented fewer difficulties, for a com¬ 
paratively level plain, well provided with roads and railways, 
stretches from Germany through Belgium and France to the 
environs of Paris. Furthermore, France had not strongly 
fortified her frontier on the side of Belgium, having trusted to 
the neutrality of that country for protection. 

The neutrality of Belgium has been a cardinal point in 
British foreign policy since the Middle Ages. It seems essential 
to Great Britain that the Belgian coast shall not Germany 
be occupied by a strong military power, thus at war with 
menacing British control of the Channel. Over 
this question she fought with Philip II of Spain in 
the sixteenth century and later with Louis XIV and Napoleon. 
Great Britain, moreover, had her explicit treaty obligations to 
Belgium, obligations which no honorable nation could fail to 
respect. When, therefore, news came that German troops were 

1 Sent August 10, 1914. 


728 


The World War 


entering Belgium, the British government, at this time controlled 
by the Liberals under Mr. Asquith, sent an ultimatum to Ger¬ 
many, requiring assurances by midnight, August 4, that Bel- 

AAtufn VTI 
fa. 4 

CAjJc/ jr p TV\ ^trn^£arr\ <\M_ i&d t^A^y\jAArLarv,f< ^ 

fit*]'*-n&ufk*. ££Bi. J&iZK. (Iuaa*& d ' c&t&n&T Ce/tl VvZttM^ 
K£4Astra£J& oav&n tiruJ &4 (Lutres tfaJ? 

Facsimile of Article VII of the Treaty of 1839 

“Belgium, within the limits specified in Articles I, II and IV, shall form 
an independent and perpetually neutral state. It shall be bound to observe 
such neutrality towards all other states.” 


gian neutrality would be respected. Germany refused, and 
Bethmann-Hollweg, in his final interview with the British 
ambassador at Berlin, complained that Great Britain was about 
to fight a kindred nation just 
f or “ a scrap of paper. ’ ’ About 
midnight Great Britain de¬ 
clared war on Germany. 

The primary responsibility 
for kindling the great confla¬ 
gration must be shouldered 
Responsibility by the former 
for the war governments of 
Austria-Hungary and Ger¬ 
many. The one government, 
by its ultimatum to Serbia, 
precipitated a grave interna¬ 
tional crisis. The other gov¬ 
ernment, by its unconditional Herbert H. Asquith 

support of its ally, nullified every effort to avert a conflict put 
forth by Great Britain, France, and Italy, and even by Russia. 
After 1871 the opposing interests of the European powers had 
again and again threatened to result in war. Peace, neverthe¬ 
less, remained unbroken, because there was a mutual desire to 





The Western Front 


729 

keep it. In 1914 two of the powers refused to tread further the 
path of peace. They flung a flaming torch into the powder 
magazine of Europe. 

200 . The Western Front 

The war quickly converted the Triple Entente into a Triple 
Alliance. Great Britain, France, and Russia engaged not to 
make peace separately and to accept a general The Allies, 
peace only on terms agreeable to all of them. The 1914 
instinct of self-preservation, which had united Europe against 
France under Louis XIV and Napoleon, was now aroused against 
the military domination of Germany under the kaiser. As on 
previous occasions, Great Britain, with her fleet, her money, and 
eventually her army, formed the keystone of the coalition. 

Germany and Austria-Hungary, though less populous and 
wealthy than their antagonists, held a better geographical 
position, and at the outset they possessed a su- The Central 
periority both in the number of trained soldiers and Powers - 1914 
in guns, munitions, and equipment. Above all, they were 
prepared. Austria-Hungary had already massed part of her 
army against Serbia, while Germany, by means of her strategic 
railroads, could move and concentrate troops on her eastern or 
western frontier with greater speed than either Russia or France. 
Should it prove to be a short war, the Central Powers, seemed 
likely to win an overwhelming victory. 

Hostilities began on the western front with the converging 
advance of the Germans through Luxemburg and Belgium. 
They occupied the tiny grand duchy without The German 
resistance and then threw themselves upon the advance 
Belgians. The fortresses of Liege and Namur, supposedly 
impregnable, were smashed to pieces by the huge German siege 
guns, and Brussels itself was captured. Nevertheless, the 
Belgian resistance — heroic, unexpected 1 — delayed by at 
least twelve days the arrival of the Germans on the frontiers of 
France. The French gained time to complete mobilization and 
the British to send an expeditionary force of one hundred thou- 

1 Fortissimi sunt Belgce (Caesar, Gallic War, i, 1). 


The World War 


73 ? 

sand men. After the first clash at Mons, the Anglo-French 
armies retired southward, fighting delaying actions all the way. 
The invaders soon crossed the Marne and at one point came 
within fifteen miles of Paris. The opposing forces were now ex¬ 
tended in an immense semi-circle, one hundred and fifty miles in 
length, from the vicinity of the French capital to below Verdun. 

The retreat of the Allied armies stopped at the Marne. “The 
hour has come,” said General Joffre in a stirring message to his 
soldiers, “ to advance at all costs, and to die where 
Marne, Sep- y ou stand rather than give way.” The battle of 
tember 6-12, the Marne, lasting an entire week, was not a single 
conflict, but a whole series of conflicts, in which 
2,500,000 men participated. On the extreme west of the line 
the French and British attacked the invaders near Paris; on 
the extreme east the French repulsed them from the fortresses 
between Verdun and Belfort. At the same time General Foch’s 



British army (Field-Marshal French). 

VI. French army (Manoury). 

V. “ “ (Franchet d’Esperey). 

IX. “ “ (Foch). . 

IV. “ “ (Langle de Cary). 

III. “ “ (Sarrail). 

1. German army (Von Kluck). 

2. “ “ (Von Bulow). 

3* “ “ (Von Hausen). 

4. “ “ (Duke of Wurtemberg). 

5. “ “ (Crown Prince of Prussia). 







The Western Front 


73 i 


magnificent assault drove in the German center on both sides 
of the marshes of St.-Gond. The weight of the combined 
movement hurled the enemy back in confusion, and with heavy 
losses of men and material, across the Aisne River. The Ger¬ 
mans had been out-generaled and out-fought; German plans for 
a speedy triumph had been upset; and Paris had been saved. 

Both sides now bent every effort to extend their lines north¬ 
ward to the sea. The Germans hoped to seize Dunkirk and 
Calais, two important Channel ports, and thus The race 
to interrupt the direct line of communication be- t0 the sea 
tween Great Britain and France; but the Allies reached the 
Channel first and further north at Nieuport. Then followed 
in October and November, 1914, the first battle of Ypres, when 
the Germans, by massed attacks, tried vainly to break through 
the British lines. Near the coast the Belgians cut the dikes 
of the river Yser, flooding the lowlands and stopping any further 
advance in this direction. Trench warfare now began to re¬ 
place open fighting all along the western front from the North 
Sea to the Swiss frontier, a distance of six hundred miles. 

Repeated efforts to break the deadlock on the western front 

marked the year 1915. Both French and British made some 

progress in clearing enemy trenches by means of 

1 t , . 1 J .. r The deadlock 

concentrated shell-fire, but as yet the production of 
high-explosive shells was 
insufficient for prolonged 
“blasting operations.” 

The Germans, on their 
part, employed poison gas 
in the second battle of 
Ypres, during April and 
May. The situation was 
critical for a time, until 
the French and British manufactured gas masks to overcome 
the choking fumes. The Allies were eventually obliged them¬ 
selves to use this hideous device against the enemy. 

The first half of 1916 was marked by the German assault 
upon Verdun, the most important French stronghold on the 







732 






























































































The Western Front 


733 


eastern frontier. The siege of the city lasted nearly five months 
and cost the lives of at least half a million men on both 
sides. The Germans, led by the crown prince, 

Frederick William, were determined to take the Verdun* 
place at any cost. The French, commanded by February- 
General Petain, were equally determined to keep it ^ uly ’ 1916 
at any cost. “ They shall not pass! ” 1 became the battle-cry of 
all France. They did not pass. More than that, in the fall of 

1916 the French resumed the offensive and within seven 
hours drove the Germans 
back almost to their orig¬ 
inal lines. Ruined Ver¬ 
dun, like' ruined Ypres, 
thus remained in Allied 
hands. 

What more than any¬ 
thing else relieved the 
pressure on Verdun was 
the Anglo-French attack 
against the German lines 
along the _ _ ... 

river Somme. Somme, July- 
Great Britain ^ 9 ° 1 g ember ’ 
by this time 
had adopted conscription 

. . . . , One of a series of powerful cartoons by Louis Rae- 

and had built up a mag- maekers, a Dutch artist. 

nificent army commanded 

by Sir Douglas Haig. The Allies now possessed more heavy guns 
and munitions than the Germans, and in the “ tanks” a weapon 
destined to prove its value in breaking the trench deadlock. 
The Allied advance took place on a front of twenty miles to a 
maximum depth of about nine miles. It was finally checked 
by German counter-attacks and by bad weather, which turned 
the battle-field into a sea of mud. 

To forestall another attack, the Germans in the spring of 

1917 retired on a wide front to the shorter and more defensible 

1 7 Is ne passeront pas l 




















734 


The World War 


Hindenburg Line. The territory evacuated by them was laid 
completely waste, every building being destroyed, vineyards up- 
The rooted, and orchards cut down. The Allies ad- 

Hindenburg vanced over this wilderness and from April to De¬ 
cember conducted a steady offensive, which brought 
them appreciable gains. The Hindenburg Line still held, how¬ 
ever, when the approach of winter put an end to active operations. 


The Guild Hall of the Cloth Merchants (begun 1201, completed 1304) was the chief edifice 
of the sort in Belgium and one of the finest examples of secular Gothic architecture in Europe. 
The facade measured 460 feet and had two ranges of painted windows. At each end rose a 
turret and in the middle the massive belfry. 



Guild Hall, Ypres 


The German treatment of Belgium and northern France 
aroused the horror of the civilized world. Deliberate, systematic 
German massacres of the civil population to prevent or 
atrocities and punish resistance, the looting and burning of entire 
villages, the destruction of Louvain with its famous 
university, the shelling of the Guild Hall of Ypres and the 
cathedral of Reims, the imposition of excessive taxes and heavy 
fines on Belgian and French cities, the robbing of Belgium and 
northern France of coal, metals, machinery, and raw materials, 
finally, the forcible deportation of tens of thousands of civilians, 
both men and women, for forced labor in Germany — these 
were some of the atrocities and outrages which characterized 
German treatment of the conquered territory. The inhabi- 





The Eastern Front 


735 


tants would have perished had it not been for the efficient sys¬ 
tem of relief organized by an American, Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, 
who enlisted the help of the Allies and of the United States in 
providing food, clothing, and other necessaries of life for the 
invaded districts. 

201 . The Eastern Front 



There was no deadlock on the eastern front. The Russians 

mobilized more rapidly than had been expected and put large 

forces in the 
r i i t The Russians 

field, under the in East 
general com- Prussia, 1914 - 
mand of .the 1915 
grand duke Nicholas, an 
uncle of the tsar. Their 
plan of campaign involved 
a simultaneous advance 
against the Germans in East 
Prussia and the Austrians 
in Galicia. The Russian 
armies which entered East 
Prussia, a difficult country 
of lakes, marshes, and 
rivers, were surprised and 
well-nigh annihilated by 
Hindenburg at the battle The Grand Duke Nicholas 
of Tannenberg (August, 

1914). The following January, when the Russians again ven¬ 
tured into this part of Germany, Hindenburg won another 
overwhelming victory at the battle of the Mazurian Lakes. 

The Russians met better luck in Galicia. They overran all 
this Austrian province and by the spring of 1915 began to pene¬ 
trate the Carpathian passes into Hungary. These The Russians 
successes had the further result of causing the with- in Galicia, 
drawal of German troops from the western front, 1914 - 1915 
with a consequent weakening of Germany’s offensive power 
against the French and British. 


The World War 


736 

The summer of 1915 saw some of the most tremendous en¬ 
gagements of the entire war. Hindenburg now assumed com- 
Hindenburg’s mand of the eastern armies of both the Central 
“drive,” 1915 p owers an d started a terrific “drive” in Poland 
and Galicia. The Germans made full use of poison gas and a 
smothering fire of high-explosive shells, while the Russians were 

hampered by lack of guns and 
ammunition. The result of the 
fighting is best traced on the 
accompanying map, which shows 
the enormous territory reoccupied 
or newly acquired by the Central 
Powers. At the end of 1915 the 
battle-line on the eastern front 
stretched from the Gulf of Riga to 
the Rumanian frontier. 

Russia’s recuperative power was 
strikingly exhibited the following 
year. General Brusilov attacked 
the Austro-German armies on a 
wide front between the Pripet 
Marshes and Bukowina, pushing 
them back from twenty to fifty miles and making huge captures 
of men and supplies. The outbreak of the Russian Revolution, 
Brusilov’s early in 1917, made it impossible to continue the 
“ dnve,” 1916 offensive. From this time there was little more 
fighting on the eastern front. Nevertheless, Russia’s part in the 
World War should not be minimized. The sacrifices which she 
made without stint during the first three years of the struggle 
were essential to the ultimate victory of the Allies. 

202 . The Balkan and Italian Fronts 

As soon as the war broke out, Montenegro made common 
cause with Serbia. The three other Christian states of the 
Neutrality of Balkans at first did not declare themselves. Bul- 
the Balkans garia had no love for Austria-Hungary, but she 
cordially hated Serbia, her most successful foe in the Second 



Hindenburg 



The Eastern Front 


737 



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Czerncr 


j ^ienn a 


idessa 


Sevastopol 


7 ///V-/////; 

Bu kb a rest 


Lianu 1 '' 


Varna 


j o ' Cetfg ^v^ 

~\. 'TDurazzo/s bj 


tt antinoP. 


Gallipel; 


ens 


'Orinth 


Allies 


Central Powers 

Farthest Russian advance, 1914-1915 
Russian advance, 1916 (Brusilov’s drive) 


Battle line, March 1918 (signing of Brest-Litovsk Treaty 


The Eastern Front 





























































































































73§ 


The World War 



Balkan War. Rumania was friendly neither to Austria-Hungary 
nor to Russia, for both possessed provinces which she wished to 
“redeem” from alien rule. 1 Public opinion in 
Greece, as voiced by Venizelos, the prime 
minister, favored the Allies. The pro-Ger¬ 
man King Constantine and the court party 
managed, however, to preserve a nominal 
neutrality. 

Turkey, largely controlled by Germany and 
fearful of Russia’s designs on Constantinople, 
soon espoused the cause of the 
ttiTcentra? 8 Central Powers. Her entrance 
The Victoria Powers, did not at first appreciably affect 

Cross October, 1914 situation, for she was still cut 

off from her associates by a neutral Bulgaria 
and a hostile Serbia. The sultan proclaimed 
a holy war of extermination against the 
“enemies of Islam.” Contrary to German 
hopes, the Moslems of North Africa, Egypt, 
and India, instead of revolting, loyally sup¬ 
ported France and Great Britain. An Anglo- 
French fleet in 1915 tried without success to 
force the Dardanelles and thus to open the 
way to Constantinople. No greater success 
attended the heroic efforts of the “Anzacs” 

(Australians and New Zealanders) to secure 
a footing on the peninsula of Gallipoli, and 
the troops were finally withdrawn from this 
graveyard of Allied hopes. 

Bulgaria, after long hesitation, also threw 
in her lot with the Central Powers. The 
situation in the Balkans now 
changed overnight. Brave little 
Serbia, who earlier in the war 
had twice expelled the Austrians, quickly collapsed 
under the double attack of Austro-Germans from the north 


Established in 1856 
for acts of bravery 
in battle. It is a 
bronze Maltese cross 
with the royal crest 
(lion and crown) in 
the center and below 
it a scroll inscribed 
“For Valour.” 


Bulgaria joins 
the Central 
Powers, 
October, 1915 



The Iron Cross 


1 Transylvania, Bukowina, and Bessarabia. 





















The Balkan and Italian Fronts 


739 


and Bulgarians from the east. Montenegro, Serbia's ally, was 
likewise conquered, together with northern Albania. The 
triumph of the Central Powers 
had the important result of 
opening up railway communi¬ 
cation between Berlin and 
Constantinople. 

Military operations in the 
Balkans were not yet over. 

Influenced by the Ruma nia joins 
success of Brusi- the Allies, 
i 7 u j • jj August, 1916 

lovs drive on 
the eastern front and the 
Anglo-French victories at 
Verdun and on the Somme in 
the West, Rumania decided 
to join the Allies. Her armies 
promptly invaded Transyl¬ 
vania. A German-Austrian-Bulgarian counter-stroke drove 
them out and led to the speedy conquest of two-thirds of their 
own territory. The Rumanian collapse brought enormous 
advantages to the Central Powers, who now had access to the 
grain fields and oil wells of Rumania. It also shortened their 
battle-front by five hundred miles and facilitated their com¬ 
munications with Bulgaria and Turkey. 

After the failure of the Dardanelles campaign a large Anglo- 
French force had been gathered behind the defenses of Salonika 
in Greece, partly as a threat to Turkey and Bulgaria Greece joins 
and partly to prevent King Constantine from bring- the Allies, 
ing Greece into the war on the side of the Central ^ une ’ 1917 
Powers. He was finally deposed by the Allies, who placed 
his second son, Alexander, on the throne. Venizelos, whom 
Constantine had dismissed from office, became prime min¬ 
ister once more and immediately took steps to insure the 
cooperation of his country with the Allies. The Balkan 
front henceforth extended westward from the 3 Egean to the 
Adriatic. 



Eleuthejiios Venizelos 


740 


The World War 


Italy declared neutrality in 1914, giving the same reason 
which she had given in 1913, 1 namely, that the terms of the 
Triple Alliance did not bind her to assist the Central 
Powers in an offensive war. But Italy was unable 
to remain neutral. Union with the Allies meant 
an opportunity to secure Italia Irredenta , those regions around 
Trent and Trieste still “unredeemed” from the grasp of Austria- 


Italy joins 
the Allies, 
May, 1915 



Hungary. There were other glittering prospects. Great 
Britain, France, and Russia, in order to secure her aid, promised 
by a secret treaty that she should be allowed to annex part of 
the Dalmatian coast, besides a share of Turkish territory, if 
the Ottoman Empire were partitioned as a result of the war. 
The pressure of national interests thus helped to range Italy 
with the Allies, but even more compelling, perhaps, was the 
conviction on the part of the Italian people that the Allies were 
fighting in a just cause for everything that mankind holds dear. 
Italy, an ancient home of civilization, would aid her Latin sister 

1 See page 713 . 














The War outside of Europe and on the Sea 741 

France in defending civilization against what seemed a fresh 
inroad of the Teutonic barbarians. 

The entrance of Italy 1 added another front and almost com¬ 
pleted the encirclement of the Central Powers. Italian armies 
marched against Trieste and the Trentino, but Italian 
for a long time made slow progress. The Austrians cam P ai g ns 
held the crest of the mountains and the passes, and the Italians 
had to force their way upward in the face of the enemy. During 
the summer of 1916 they finally crossed the Isonzo River and 
occupied Gorizia on the way to Trieste. The break-up of 
Russia after the revolution freed large forces of the Central 
Powers for service against Italy. An Austro-German attack, 
late in 1917, undid all that the Italians had accomplished in 
more than two years of hard fighting and forced them back as 
far as the Piave River. There, with some aid from French 
and British troops, the Italians checked their foes. 

The military situation in Europe at the end of 1917 clearly 
favored the Central Powers. On the western front they held 
Luxemburg, nearly all of Belgium, and a broad The Ameg 
strip of northern France containing valuable coal and the 
and iron mines. On the eastern front they held igi7 

Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, the richest indus¬ 
trial districts of the Russian Empire. They had overrun Serbia, 
Montenegro, northern Albania, and a large part of Rumania. 
They had taken most of Venetia from the Italians. Their 
only territorial losses to the Allies were in southern Alsace and 
eastern Galicia. A different picture, however, was presented 
outside of Europe and on the sea. 

203 . The War outside of Europe and on the Sea, 
1914-1917 

The sea-power of the Allies enabled them to capture Ger¬ 
many’s colonial possessions. The British and French seized 
Togo and the Cameroons in West Africa. British Capture of 
troops from the Union of South Africa, assisted by the German 
loyal Boers, took German Southwest Africa, and colomes 
in cooperation with Belgian forces took German East Africa. 

1 San Marino also has a place in the Allied honor roll. 


742 


The World War 


The German - possessions in the Pacific, 1 south of the equator, 
were conquered by the Austrians and New Zealanders, and 
those north of the equator by the Japanese. 

Japan promptly entered the war on the side of the Allies. 
She had not forgotten the kaiser’s slighting references to the 
Capture of “ Yellow Peril ” nor the fact that Germany had been 
Kiauchau, chiefly instrumental in depriving her of Port Arthur 
and Liaotung Peninsula, after the Chino-Japanese 
War in 1895. 2 Moreover, Japan had entered into an alliance 
with Great Britain providing for mutual support were the 
territorial rights or special interests of either power in the Far 
East threatened by another power. 3 Japan’s special contri¬ 
bution to the Allied cause was the capture of Kiauchau, the 
German naval base and stronghold in the Far Ea$t. 4 

Germany’s ally, Turkey, suffered the loss of her outlying 
possessions. Great Britain proclaimed a protectorate over 
Freeing of Egypt and set up a new ruler, or sultan, who was 

Egypt and to be quite independent of the sultan at Constanti- 

Arabia nople. The British also encouraged a revolt of 

the Arabs against Turkey. Arab troops secured Mecca and 
Medina, the sacred places of Arabia, and established the kingdom 
of Hejaz, which extends along the eastern coast of the Red Sea. 

Two other countries, long under the heel of the Turk, owed 
their liberation to Great Britain. An expeditionary force, 
Freeing Of largely composed of Indian contingents, invaded 
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia by way of the Tigris River and 
and Palestine en t e red Bagdad in triumph (March, 1917). An¬ 
other British army, starting from Egypt, invaded Palestine and 
took possession of Jerusalem (December, 1917). The Holy 
City, after nearly seven centuries, was again in Christian hands. 

The fleets of the Allies quickly swept the merchantmen of 
the Central Powers from the ocean and compelled their war- 
Aliied control slll P s to keep the shelter of home ports. The few 
Of the sea German raiders which remained at large after 
hostilities began were either captured or sunk. Once only did 
the German “High Seas Fleet” slip out of Kiel Harbor, to be met 

1 See page 493, note 1. 2 See page 557. 3 See page 562. 


4 See page 492. 


The War outside of Europe and on the Sea 743 

by the British battle cruisers off the coast of Jutland (May 31, 
1916). Both sides suffered heavy losses in the engagement 
which followed. With the approach of darkness, however, 
the German ships returned to their safe anchorage and did 
not emerge again during the remainder of the war. 

Allied control of the sea led to an immediate blockade of 

Germany and Austria-Hungary. Three results followed. The 

Allies were able freely to import food and raw ,, , „ 

. i • 1 • . The blockade 

materials irom their colonies and neutral states. 

They kept the ocean lanes safe for the transportation of troops 
from Africa, India, Australia, and Canada, meanwhile prevent¬ 
ing the return of Austro-German reservists from the United 
States and other countries. Finally, the Allies extinguished the 
commerce of the Central Powers, who were henceforth hard 
pressed to find the necessary sinews of war for their armies and 
food for their civilian population. 

The Allied blockade became more and more stringent. At 
first, it prevented the importation into Germany only of muni¬ 
tions and other materials used for military pur- Extension of 
poses. In February, 1915, Great Britain also de- the blockade 
dared foodstuffs contraband, and as such liable to seizure if 
carried from neutral countries in neutral ships to Germany. 
The British justified their action on the ground that the German 
government had already commandeered the stocks of grain in 
private hands to insure the feeding of its armies, in other words, 
had itself treated foodstuffs as practically indispensable to the 
conduct of the war. 

The Central Powers relied on submarines (U-boats) to break 
the blockade. During the first months of the war the sub¬ 
marines attacked only enemy warships, but before Submarine 
long they began to destroy without warning enemy warfare 
merchantmen. This was in flagrant defiance of international 
law, which requires that a cargo or a passenger ship, under 
either an enemy or a neutral flag, shall be warned before being 
attacked and every effort made to safeguard human lives. 
After the British action in making food contraband, Germany 
went so far as to declare the waters around the British Isles 


744 


The World War 


a “war zone,” where all enemy merchantmen would be sunk, 
whether or not passengers and crews could be rescued. Neutral 
vessels were also warned against trespassing within the zone. 
It goes without saying that this declaration constituted only a 
“paper blockade,” of the sort that had been already prohibited 
by the Declaration of Paris in 1856. 1 The attempt to enforce 
the blockade by piratical means brought about the entrance 
of the United States into the World War. 



204 . Intervention of the United States 

President Wilson announced the neutrality of the United 
States immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities. No 
The United other course seemed possible, in view of our tradi- 
States as a tional policy of non-interference in European 
affairs and our peaceful temper. The President 
also asked for neutrality of sentiment on the part of the American 

1 See page 629. 












Intervention of the United States 


745 


people, so that the United States, as the one great nation at 
peace, might in time be able to mediate between the warring 
countries. While the government did remain neutral,‘American 
citizens could not avoid taking sides. The Central Powers had 



The “Lusitania” 


many active sympathizers, especially among those of German 
birth or parentage. Public opinion, however, favored the Allies; 
above all, France, who had helped us so much in the Revolu¬ 
tionary War, and Belgium, so innocent and so cruelly wronged. 
But as yet there was little thought of our active participation 
in the war. 

The United States, before long, was drawn into diplomatic 
controversies with the belligerents. President Wilson made 
repeated and vigorous protests to Great Britain re- Submarine 
garding alleged infringements by that country of atroclties 
our neutral rights at sea, especially the detention of American 
ships in British ports to determine whether or not the ships 
carried contraband goods. But Germany’s proclamation of a 
“ war zone ” raised a much more serious issue. President Wilson 
protested at once, declaring that the United States would hold 
the German government to a “strict accountability” for Ameri¬ 
can ships destroyed or American citizens killed. Germany 
disclaimed all responsibility for “ accidents ” which might occur. 
U-boats proceeded to torpedo the great British liner Lusitania 
with the loss of over one hundred American men, women, and 
children (May 7, 1915), 1 and also attacked American ships and 

1 In all, 1195 persons were drowned. 


746 


The World War 


those of other neutral nations. A “war of notes” between the 
United States and Germany finally extorted a German pledge 
not to sink merchant vessels without warning, unless they at¬ 
tempted to escape or offered resistance (May, 1916). Germany 
never intended to keep her pledge 
any longer than convenient, as the 
frank Bethmann-Hollweg after¬ 
wards admitted in a public state¬ 
ment. At the end of January, 1917, 
she notified the American govern¬ 
ment of her purpose to sink at sight 
all ships, both enemy and neutral, 
found within certain areas adjoining 
the British Isles, France, and Italy, 
and in the Mediterranean. Only 
„ , , , , , narrow “safety lanes” to one British 

The obverse, shown here, bears under 

the legend Keine Bannware (“No Con- port and to Greek waters Were left 
traband”) a representation of the sink- 0 p en f or a limited amount of neutral 
ing ship. The designer of the medal has r . 

added guns and airplanes, which, how- traffic inside the barred zone. Ger- 
ever, the Lusitania did not carry. many thus proposed to violate 

every right to the freedom of the seas for which the United 
States had ever contended. President Wilson then severed 
diplomatic relations with the German government. This act 
did not necessarily mean war, but it prepared the way for war. 

Submarine atrocities combined with Austro-German intrigues 
and conspiracies throughout the United States to arouse the 
Intrigues and warlike temper of the American people. Official 
conspiracies an( j n0 n-official representatives of the Central 
Powers had done all they could to destroy munition plants and 
steel factories supplying the Allies. Funds were sent to the 
German ambassador for use in bribing Congress to declare an 
embargo on the traffic in munitions. Spies were multiplied 
throughout the country. Efforts were made to foment ill feel¬ 
ing in the United States against Japan and in Mexico against the 
United States. When Germany was about to proclaim un¬ 
restricted submarine warfare and believed the intervention of 
the United States would follow, she even invited Mexico to 





Intervention of the United States 


S.J.ftes. g^BLlC RESOLUTION....NO. /~ ....65th CONGRESS.) 





Congress of tjje ®nrtel) States of ^merits; 


the Ifirst Jkssitm, 


Began and held at the City of Waddagtoa on Monday, the tecood day of April, 
one Hmunwt aiae hundred and nvcatsea. 


JOINT RESOLUTION 

Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial German Government 
and the Government and the people of the United State* and mal t in g 
provision to prosecute the same. 


Whereas the Imperial German Government has committed repeated acta of 
war against tho Government and the people of the United States of 
America: Therefore be it 

Resolved by the Senate and House oj Representatives of the United States 
of America in Conyress assembled. That the state of war between the United 
Stifles and tho Imperial German Government which has thus been thrust upon- 
the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the President be, and 
he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military 
font's of the United Stales and tho resources of the Government to canyon war- 
against the Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a 
successful termination all of the resources of tho country are hereby pledged by 
the Congress of the United States. . srf? 

L I t ^ 

Speaker o] the House oj Representatives. 

(fl. 

»,ce President oj the United States and 

President oj the Senate. 




The United States Declaration oe War 

























748 


The World War 


enter an alliance with her, promising aid in helping that country 
recover the American Southwest. Such actions convinced our 
people that Germany and her satellites were running amuck 
under irresponsible rulers and that national safety, no less than 
national honor, required us to take the side of the Allies. 

American intervention soon became an accomplished fact. 
The President, in an address before a special session of Congress, 
The United ur 8 e d that since Germany had repeatedly corn- 
states as a mitted hostile acts against the United States, we 
belligerent should formally accept the status of belligerent thus 
thrust upon us. Congress responded by declaring war on 
Germany (April 6, 1917). Similar action was taken as to 
Austria-Hungary in December of the same year. Diplomatic 
relations with Turkey and Bulgaria were also broken. 

The people of the United States, the President said, had no 
quarrel with the people of the Central Powers, who had been 
A world blindly into the war by their autocratic govern- 

“ safe for ^ ments. Our quarrel was with these governments 
democracy a i one . The United States, in consequence, asked 
nothing for herself — neither annexations nor indemnities. 
She fought to uphold the freedom of the seas, to defend the 
rights of small nations and oppressed nationalities, to put down 
divine-right monarchy, secret diplomacy, and militarism, to 
promote among mankind that ordered liberty under law which 
she had long enjoyed, and to make the world “ safe for democ¬ 
racy.” In such a cause American citizens were privileged to 
spend their lives and their fortunes. 

The United States prepared on a colossal scale for the war. 

Part of the navy was immediately sent to Europe, including a 

War prepara- number of torpedo boats and destroyers to fight the 

tionsinthe German submarines. The American navv, with 
United States . , , P _ _ . . 

some assistance from that of Great Britain, also 

planted more than 70,000 mines in the North Sea for a distance 

of 240 miles from the Orkney Islands to the coast of Norway. 

This deadly marine barrage was laid down in 1918. It effectually 

shut out German submarines from ingress into the Atlantic, 

for the narrow strait of Dover had already been closed by mines 


Intervention of the United States 


749 


and nets. The government adopted conscription as the most 
rapid and democratic method of raising an army, and two months 
after the declaration of war over ten million young men were 



North Sea Mine Fields 


registered for service. Officers’ training camps were established, 
and thirty-two cantonments — virtual cities, each housing 
forty thousand men — were set up within ninety days to ac¬ 
commodate the private soldiers under training. Congress made 
huge appropriations for the construction of airplanes, for build¬ 
ing cargo ships to replace those sunk by the enemy, for loans to 
the Allies, and for the purchase of immense quantities of food, 

















75o 


The World War 


clothing, rifles, machine guns, artillery, munitions, and all the 
other equipment of a modern fighting force. The money was 
raised partly by increased taxation, partly by borrowing (the 
Liberty Loans). Other features of the American war program 
included fuel control, food control, under the efficient direction 
of Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, and government operation of rail¬ 
roads, express companies, and telegraph and telephone lines. 
American engineers in France also constructed docks, storage 
depots, barracks, and even entire railways for the reception of 
America’s armies. 

Public opinion in Latin America very generally approved of 
the action of the United States in entering the conflict against 
Latin America Germany. During 1917 Brazil, Cuba, and Panama 
and the ranged themselves by the side of the United States; 

during 1918 Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, 
Nicaragua, and Haiti followed the same course. Five coun¬ 
tries — Santo Domingo, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay — 
broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. The seven re¬ 
maining countries — Mexico, Salvador, 1 Venezuela, Colombia, 
Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay — continued their formal 
neutrality. The Mexican government showed itself pro-German 
throughout the war. Chile and Argentina kept neutral largely 
as the result of clever German propaganda. Brazil was thus 
the only one of the larger Latin-American republics to aid the 
Allies. She took this step because of her traditional friendship 
for the United States, and also because she wished to give to 
her foreign policy, at a critical moment of the world’s history, 
a practical form of “continental solidarity.” 

205 . The Russian Revolution 

The Russian Revolution, beginning on the eve of American 
intervention, revealed the war more clearly than ever as no 
“ Dark mere conflict for the preservation of power in 

forces ” in Europe, but as a world-wide struggle between 
democracy and autocracy. Popular uprisings m 
Russia between 1905 and 1906 had compelled the tsar to grant 

1 Salvador declared a benevolent neutrality toward the United States. 


The Russian Revolution 


75i 


a national legislature (Duma), without, however, seriously 
weakening the position of the government. 1 The war dis¬ 
closed how inefficient, weak, and even corrupt that government 
was. Late in 1916 the pro-German party at the court secretly 
began negotiations with the Central Powers for a separate peace. 
Patriotic Russians in the Duma passed a resolution that “dark 
forces” in high places were betraying the nation’s interest. 
Nevertheless, the intrigue went on, and the demoralization of 
Russia proceeded apace. 

A severe shortage of food in Petrograd brought matters to 
a crisis. Rioting broke out, and the troops were ordered to sup¬ 
press it with bullet and bayonet in the usual pitiless .... .. . 

fashion. But the old army, so long the prop of the tsar, 
autocracy, languished in German prison camps or 15, 

lay underground. The new army, mostly recruited 
from peasants and workingmen since the war, refused to fire 
on the people. Autocracy found itself helpless. The Duma 
then induced the tsar to sign the penciled memorandum which 
ended the Romanov dynasty after three hundred and four years 
of absolute power. 2 

The revolutionists set up a provisional government, headed 
by the executive committee of the Duma. Nearly all the 
members belonged to the party of Constitutional Rule of the 
Democrats, representing the middle class, or hour- Constitutional 
geoisie. Many liberal reforms were announced: 
liberty of speech and of the press; the right of suffrage for both 
men and women; a general amnesty for all political offenders 
and Siberian exiles; and a constituent assembly to draw up a 
constitution for Russia. The United States and the western 
Allies promptly recognized the new government. 

Socialists did not rest satisfied with these measures. They 
planned to give the revolution an economic rather than merely 
a political character. Throughout Russia they Soviets 
organized soviets , or councils representing working¬ 
men and soldiers. The most important of these bodies was the 
Petrograd Council of Workingmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates. 

1 See page 514- 2 See P a S e x 9 8 - 


752 


The World War 


The socialistic propaganda for a general peace on the basis of 
“no annexations and no indemnities” also made rapid head¬ 
way with the army at the front. The troops began to elect 
their own officers, to fraternize with the enemy, and to desert 
in large numbers. The Petrograd soviet , having won the sup¬ 
port of the army, then abolished the Duma as a stronghold of 
the bourgeoisie and replaced the Constitutional Democrats in 
the provisional government with socialists. 

The socialist leader was a young lawyer named Alexander 
Kerensky. His impassioned oratory gave him great influence, 
Alexander and by July, 1917, he had become practical dic- 
Kerensky tator. But Kerensky turned out to be neither a 
Cromwell nor a Napoleon, at a time when Russia required a 
combination of both for her salvation. A moderate socialist, 
he did not please the Constitutional Democrats, and he pleased 
the radical socialists still less. In November, 1917, a second 
revolution in Petrograd overthrew him and the provisional 
government which he headed. 

The two men at the head of the revolutionary movement were 
Nicholas Lenin and Leo Trotsky. They belonged -to the 
Lenin and Bolsheviki, 1 an organization of radical socialists. 
Trotsky Lenin was born of Russian parents and was brought 
up in the Orthodox faith. He received an education in eco¬ 
nomics and law at the university of Petrograd. His socialistic 
activities soon resulted in a three years’ exile to Siberia. After 
his release he went abroad and became prominent in the revolu¬ 
tionary circles of many European capitals. Trotsky, a Russian 
Jew, also suffered exile to Siberia as an undesirable agitator, the 
first time for four years, the second time for life. Having 
managed to escape, Trotsky went to western Europe and later 
to the United States. After the Russian Revolution both men 
returned to their native country and engaged in socialistic 
propaganda, with the results that have been seen. Lenin be¬ 
came premier and Trotsky foreign minister (subsequently 
minister of war) in the new government. 


1 A Russian word meaning “majority men. ! 


War Aims of the Allies 


753 


The Bolsheviki now made peace with the Central Powers. 
They agreed to recognize the independence, under German 
auspices, of both Finland and the Ukraine. Po- ^ 

Treaty of 

land, Lithuania, and Courland, conquered by Ger- Brest-Litovsk, 
many in 1915, were surrendered to that country, Maf ch 3,1918 
together with Livonia and Esthonia. This humiliating treaty 
deprived Russia of about a third of her population and a third 
of her territory, including the richest agricultural lands, the 
chief industrial districts, most of the iron mines and coal mines, 
and many of the principal railways of the former empire. Had 
the Brest-Litovsk Treaty endured, Germany would have been 
the real winner of the World War, whatever might have been 
the outcome of the conflict elsewhere in Europe. 

206 . War Aims of the Allies 

The issues at stake in the World War became clearer as the 
struggle proceeded. When, on August 1, 1917, Pope Benedict 
XV proposed that the belligerent nations negotiate Peace 
with one another on the basis of conditions existing P r °P° sals 
before 1914, President Wilson answered, for both the United 
States and the Allies, that no enduring peace could be arranged 
with the autocratic and irresponsible German government. On 
December 2, 1917, the Bolshevist envoys at Brest-Litovsk 
brought forward their own proposals for ending the war through 
a congress of delegates chosen by the parliament of each country. 
Then on January 5, 1918, Mr. Lloyd George, in a speech before 
the Trade Union Conference at London, set forth more specifi¬ 
cally than ever before the purposes of the Allies. Permanent 
peace could not come, the British premier declared, until three 
conditions were fulfilled: first, the sanctity of treaties must be 
reestablished; second, territorial settlements must be based on 
the right of self-determination of nationalities, or the consent 
of the governed; and third, some international organization 
must be created to limit the burden of armaments and diminish 
the probability of future conflicts. 

This speech was followed on January 8, 1918, by President 
Wilson’s address to Congress, setting forth a program for a just 


160 140 120 CM00 V 80^ J 60 40 COT? 0 QS 40 60 80 JU' 120 140 160 


754 


The World War 



The World War in 1918 a.d. 





































































































































































War Aims of the Allies 


755 


and lasting settlement. While the President spoke only for the 
United States, his “ Fourteen Points” met general acceptance 
in Great Britain, France, and Italy as embodying The 
the war aims of the Allies. The. “ Four teen “Fourteen 
Points” included: abolition of secret diplomacy; Points 
freedom of the seas; removal of economic barriers between the 
nations; reduction of armaments; impartial adjustment of 
colonial claims, evacuation by Germany of all conquered terri¬ 
tory and the restoration of Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine; 
readjustment of Italian frontiers along the lines of nationality; 
an independent Poland; self-government for the different 
peoples of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire; and, 
finally, the formation of a general association of nations. In 
detail, they were as follows: 


1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no 
private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed al¬ 
ways frankly and in the public view. 

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, 
alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by 
international action for the enforcement of international covenants. 

3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment 
of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and 
associating themselves for its maintenance. 

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be re¬ 
duced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. 

5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial 
claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such 
questions of sovereignty the interest of the populations concerned must have equal 
weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. 

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions 
affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations 
of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity 
for the independent determination of her own political development and national 
policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under 
institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every 
kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia 
by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, 
of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and 
of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. 

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, with¬ 
out any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other 
free nations. No other single act will serve, as this will serve, to restore confidence 
among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for 


756 


The World War 


the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the 
whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired. 

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and 
the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which 
has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in 
order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. 

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be affected'along clearly 
recognizable lines of nationality. 

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish 
to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autono¬ 
mous development. 

11. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied terri¬ 
tories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations 
of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along 
historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international 
guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of 
the several Balkan states should be entered into. 

12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a 
secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule 
should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested op¬ 
portunity of autonomous development; and the Dardanelles should be permanently 
opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international 
guarantees. 

13. An independent Polish state should be erected, which should include the 
territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured 
a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence 
and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. 

14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants 
for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and terri¬ 
torial integrity to great and small states alike. 

207. End of the War, 1918 

The satisfaction with which the western Allies greeted the 

overthrow of autocracy in Russia turned to dismay when that 

Situation at country, within a year, embraced radical socialism 

the beginning and withdrew from the war. The Treaty of Brest- 
of 19X8 J 

Litovsk gave the Central Powers a free hand in the 

West. Great Britain, France, and Italy recognized this fact 

and prepared to remain on the defensive until the United States 

should be able to throw the full weight of its resources into the 

struggle. The Allies, now under the resolute leadership of 

Lloyd George in Great Britain, Clemenceau in France, and 

Orlando in Italy, could afford to wait. To the Central Powers 

a prolongation of the war spelled ruin. “ Frightfulness ” on the 


End of the War 


757 • 


ocean had not broken the blockade or starved Great Britain or 
interrupted the stream of transports carrying American troops 
in ever larger numbers 
to Europe. Germany 
realized that her su¬ 
preme effort for world 
dominion must be made 
in 1918, or never. “If 
the enemy does not 
want peace,” declared 
the kaiser, “then we 
must bring peace to the 
world by battering in 
with the iron fist and 
shining sword the doors 
of those who will not 
have peace.” 1 
Having gathered 
every available man and 
gun, Field Marshal Hin- “Von Pot xjnd Von Kettle” 

denburg and his associ- After a cartoon in Punch. The German general and 
ate GeneralLudendorff t ^ ie German admiral are blaming each other for the failure 
’ 1 to stop the Americans either by sea or on the land. 

on March 21, 1918, 

started a “drive” along the line from Arras to La Fere. 
Their plan was obvious: to split the Anglo-French German 
forces at the point of juncture on the Oise River; “ drives ” 
to roll each army back, the British upon the Channel, the French 
upon Paris; and then to destroy each army separately. The 
battle which followed surpassed in intensity every previous 
engagement on the western front. By terrific massed attacks, 
the Germans regained in a few days all the ground so slowly 
and painfully won by the Allied offensives in 1916 and 1917. 
The British were pushed back twenty-five miles, bringing the 
enemy within artillery range of Amiens and its important rail¬ 
way connections. The critical condition of affairs led the Allies 
to establish unity of military action by putting all their forces 

1 Address to the Second German Army in France, December 22, 1917. 





The World War 



under the command of General Foch, an admirable strategist, 
who shared with Joffre the glory of the Marne battle. Be¬ 
fore this step was taken, General Pershing had already offered 
the entire American army to be used wherever needed by the 
Allies. The Germans in April launched another “drive” to 
the north, between Arras and Ypres, against the British guard¬ 
ing the road to the Chan¬ 
nel ports. The enemy 
again drove a deep wedge 
into the British line. 
It was at this dark hour 
of the struggle that Sir 
Douglas Haig issued his 
historic order: “With our 
backs to the wall, and 
believing in the justice of 
our cause, each one of us 
must fight to the end. 
The safety of our homes 
and the freedom of man- 
Eric von Ludendorff kind depend alike upon 

the conduct of each one 
of us at the critical moment.” French reinforcements arrived 
on the scene in time to check the German advance. A third 
“drive” at the end of May, between Soissons and Reims, 
brought the Germans back once more to the Marne at Chateau- 
Thierry, only forty-three miles from Paris, but French and 
American troops again halted the advance. Renewed German 
efforts in June and July to pierce the Allied line and reach Paris 
were fruitless. And now the tide turned. 

General Foch, always an advocate of the offensive in warfare, 
found himself by midsummer able to put his theories into prac- 
The turn of tice. He now possessed the reinforcements sent 
the tide by both Q reat Britain and Italy to help hold the 
long line from the sea to Switzerland, together with more than a 
million American soldiers — “Pershing’s crusaders” — whose 
mettle had been already tested and not found wanting in en- 




MARSHAL JOFFRE 


MARSHAL FOCH 



GENERAL PERSHING 


SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 


Portraits © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 


















End of the War 


759 


gagements at Cantigny, in the Belleau Woods, and at Chateau- 
Thierry. July 18, 1918, is a memorable date, for on that day 
the Allies began the series of rapid counter-strokes, perfectly 
coordinated, which four months later brought the war on the 
western front to a victorious conclusion. How the French and 
Americans pinched the Germans out of the Marne salient; 
how the Americans, in their first independent operation, swept 
the enemy from the St.-Mihiel salient, south of Verdun, thus 
getting within range of the great fortress of Metz, and started an 
advance east of the Argonne Forest which carried them to 
Sedan; how the British, with French and American assistance, 
broke the “Hindenburg Line”; how the Belgians, British, and 
French liberated Flanders — these are only the outstanding 
events of a period unsurpassed in interest and importance since 
the dawn of history. 

With disaster impending on the western front, Germany could 
no longer support her confederates in the other theaters of the 
war. Bulgaria was the first of the Central Powers 
to collapse. A vigorous offensive, begun during with 1 Bulgaria, 
September by British, Greek, Serbian, French, and September 29, 
Italian troops in the Balkans, split the Bul¬ 
garian armies apart, thus opening the way for an immediate 
advance upon Sofia. Bulgaria then surrendered unconditionally. 
Tsar Ferdinand abdicated shortly afterward. 

Turkey, now isolated from Germany and Austria-Hungary, 
was the second of the Central Powers to collapse. The cam¬ 
paign against the Turks during September and 

. r . , , . r Armistice 

October formed an unbroken succession ot vie- w ith Turkey, 

tories. British forces, keeping close touch with October 30, 
their Arab allies, advanced northward from the 
neighborhood of Jerusalem. They took Damascus, the capital 
of Syria, and soon entered Aleppo, close to the railway between 
Constantinople and Bagdad. 1 The British at the same time 
captured the Turkish army on the Tigris. Nothing remained 
for Turkey but to sign an armistice which demobilized her 
troops and opened the road to Constantinople for the Allies. 

1 See the map on page 710. 


760 


The World War 


Simultaneously, Austria-Hungary collapsed. What Italians 
call the battle of Vittorio Veneto began at the end of October, 
Armistice when General Diaz, the Italian commander, struck 

with Austria- a gulden blow at the Austrian armies and hurled 

Hungary, 

November 3, them back along the whole front from the Alps to 
1918 the sea. The battle soon assumed the proportions 

of a disaster perhaps unequaled in the annals of war. The 
Italians chased the Austrians out of northern Italy, occupied 
Trent and Trieste, and captured six hundred thousand prisoners 
and seven thousand guns. Austria-Hungary then signed an 
armistice which, as in the cases of Bulgaria and Turkey, 
amounted to an unconditional surrender. 

The military overthrow of the Dual Monarchy quickly led 
to its disintegration. Separate states arose, representing the 
Revolution various nationalities formerly subject to the Haps- 
in Austria- burgs. Emperor Charles I bowed to the inevi- 
Hungary table and laid down the imperial crown which he 
had assumed in 1916 upon the death of Francis Joseph I. Such 
was the end of the Hapsburg dynasty, rulers of Austria since the 
latter part of the thirteenth century. 1 

The Hohenzollerns also disappeared from the scene. As 
Germany during that fateful summer and autumn of 1918 
Revolution began to taste the bitterness of defeat, the popular 
in Germany demand for peace and democratic government 
became an open summons to the kaiser to abdicate. He long 
resisted, vainly making one concession after another, until the 
red flag had been hoisted over the German fleet at Kiel, and 
Berlin and other cities were in the hands of revolutionists. Then 
he abdicated, both as emperor and king, and fled to Holland. 
The other German crowns quickly fell, like overripe fruit. 
Germany soon became a socialist republic, controlled by the 
Social Democrats. 2 

The armistice, which practically ended the war, was con¬ 
cluded by the Allies and the United States with the new German 
government. It formed a long document of thirty-five clauses, 
covering every aspect of the military situation and making it 


See page 207. 


See pages 487 and 647. 


End of the War 


761 


impossible for Germany to renew hostilities before the peace 
settlement. Germany agreed to return all prisoners of war; to 
surrender her submarines, the best part of her fleet, Armistice 

and immense numbers of cannon, machine guns, 

. . . _ . . f Germany, 

and airplanes; to evacuate Belgium, Luxemburg, November 

France, and Alsace-Lorraine; and to allow the llf 1918 

joint occupation by Allied and American troops of the Rhine- 

lands, together with the principal crossings of the Rhine (Mainz, 

Coblenz, and Cologne) and bridgeheads at these points on the 

right bank of the river. A neutral zone was reserved between 

the occupied territory and the rest of Germany . 1 The German 

government signed the armistice on the understanding that the 

final peace settlement would accord with President Wilson’s 

“ Fourteen Points,” which had been accepted by the Allies 

as a summary of their war aims. 

The sudden termination of hostilities found the greater part 
of Europe in confusion. The former empires of the Romanovs, 
Hapsburgs, and Hohenzollerns promised to break situation at 
up into a large number of independent states, the en d of 
with new governments and a new distribution of 
population. The problems for solution by the peace conference 
included, therefore, not only the necessary arrangements for 
indemnities in money and territory to be paid by the Central 
Powers and the disposition of Germany’s colonial possessions, 
but also the creation of a number of new sovereign countries with 
boundaries so drawn as to satisfy all legitimate national aspira¬ 
tions. The World War was to be followed by a World Settle¬ 
ment. 

Studies 

1. Summarize in essay form (about five hundred words) what seem to you to 
have been the fundamental causes of the World War. 2. Define the following: 
ultimatum, mobilization, reservists, blockade, contraband of war, and salient. 
3. Enumerate the more important countries that remained entirely neutral during 
the World War. 4. Compare the World War, as to its epoch-making character, 
with (a) the Thirty Years’ War; ( b ) the Seven Years’ War; and (c) the revolutionary 
and Napoleonic wars. 5. Show that the assassination of the Austrian crown prince 
furnished an excuse rather than a reason for war. 6. What were the “strategical 
grounds” for the German invasion of Belgium? 7- Is it likely that Great Britain 
1 See the map, page 732. 


762 


The World War 


would have become a belligerent if Belgian neutrality had not been violated? 
8. What made the capture of Paris seem so vitally important to the Germans at the 
outset of the war? 9. The battle of the Marne has been called “one more decisive 
battle of the world.” Comment on this statement. 10. How did the Austro- 
German victories on the eastern and Balkan fronts contribute to the realization of 
“Middle Europe”? 11. Did Japan have sufficient reason for declaring war against 

Germany ? 12. On what grounds did President Wilson adopt a policy of neutrality ? 

13. Show that the United States, as a neutral, could not properly place an embargo 
on the exports of arms and munitions to the Allies. 14. Compare the German 
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare with Napoleon’s Continental System. 
15. Enumerate the principal reasons for the entrance of the United States in the 
war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. 16. Why did not the United States 
declare war on Bulgaria and Turkey? 17. How did the revolution in Russia lead 
to the disintegration of the country? Contrast its results in this respect with the 
French Revolution. 18. What gave special significance to President Wilson’s 
“Fourteen Points” as a statement of Allied war aims? 19. On an outline map 
indicate the territory surrendered by Russia according to the Treaty of Brest- 
Litovsk. 20. Account for the rapid collapse of the Central Powers in the latter 
part of 1918. 2i. On the basis of the statements in the text, give some account of 

the origin, character, and extinction of the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov 
dynasties. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE WORLD SETTLEMENT, 1919-1920 
208. The Peace Conference 

On January 18, 1919, forty-eight years to a day from the 
proclamation of the German Empire in the palace of Louis XIV 
at Versailles, the Peace Conference assembled at __ . 

. . Meeting 

Paris. It was a gathering which dwarfed into 
insignificance the Congress at Vienna or those still earlier 
congresses of Utrecht and Westphalia. They met to settle the 
affairs of Europe; this one 
met to settle the affairs of the 
world. 

The seventy official dele¬ 
gates to the conference rep¬ 
resented all the 

A11 . . , . Membership 

Allied and Asso¬ 
ciated countries (except San 
Marino, Montenegro, Costa 
Rica, and Russia) and those 
which had severed diplo¬ 
matic relations with the Cen¬ 
tral Powers (except Santo 
Domingo). Poland, Czecho¬ 
slovakia, and Hejaz, three 
states which had been formed 
during the war and had been 
recognized by the Allies, also sent delegates to Versailles. 
Neutral states were admitted to the conference only when 
matters affecting their particular interests came up for discus¬ 
sion. Enemy states were altogether excluded, for, in the words 
of President Poincare’s opening address, “You have thought 

763 



Raymond Poincare 


764 


The World Settlement 


that the terms of peace ought to be arranged among ourselves 
before they are communicated to those against whom we have 
fought the good fight.” 

The number of delegates was fixed as follows: five each for 
the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan; 

three each for Belgium, Brazil, and Serbia; two 
Organization eac k £ Qr Q reece> Rumania, Poland, Czecho¬ 
slovakia, Portugal, China, Siam, the kingdom of Hejaz, India, 
Australia, South Africa, and Canada; and ene each for the 
remaining countries. Committees of the delegates, together 
with other representatives of the powers, were appointed to 
investigate and report on such subjects as the League of Nations, 
responsibility for the war, reparation by the enemy, and inter¬ 
national labor legislation. Over a thousand experts upon 
geography, history, race conditions, international law, commerce, 
and other technical matters cooperated with the delegates. 
Premier Clemenceau of France was unanimously chosen chair¬ 
man of the conference. 

The direction of affairs naturally fell to the United States, 
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. The two ranking 
The Supreme delegates 1 from each of these five powers con- 
Council stituted a Supreme Council to discuss and formulate 
the business of the conference. As time went on, the difficulty 
of reconciling the many diverse interests and of reaching a 
settlement satisfactory to all made it necessary to reduce the 
original council of ten members to one of five. Finally, both 
Japan and Italy dropped from the inner circle, and the “Big 
Three,” namely, premiers Clemenceau and Lloyd George, and 
President Wilson, decided among themselves the most important 
questions. Very few of their decisions were made public. This 
apparent relapse into the ways of the old and discredited “ secret 
diplomacy” aroused criticism at the time, especially from those 

1 United States: Woodrow Wilson, President, and Robert Lansing, Secretary 
of State; Great Britain: David Lloyd George, Prime Minister, and A. J. Balfour, 
Foreign Secretary; France: Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister, and Stephen 
Pinchon, Foreign Minister; Italy: Vittorio Orlando, Prime Minister, and Baron 
Sonnino, Foreign Minister; Japan: the Marquis Saionji, formerly Prime Minister, 
and Viscount Chinda. 


The Peace Conference 


765 


who did not realize the magnitude of the task before the 
conference and the urgent need of haste in concluding its 
labors. 

Meanwhile, the drafting of the peace treaty with Germany 
proceeded steadily. Early in May it was delivered to the 
German delegates, who had been summoned to The treaty 
Versailles for the occasion. They were given a delivered 
maximum period of fifteen days within which to present their 
written observations on the entire document. The time limit, 
however, was subsequently ex¬ 
tended. 

A long interchange of notes 
followed. The German gov¬ 
ernment, declar- The treaty 
ing that the terms amended 
of the treaty violated Presi¬ 
dent Wilson’s “ Fourteen 
Points,” tried hard to secure 
a radical modification of the 
Allied demands. The Supreme 
Council, in reply, made a num¬ 
ber of concessions, none of 
them vitally important. The 
treaty as thus amended (the 
changes being written on the 

margins in red ink) was again delivered to the German delegates, 
who were allowed five days to declare their purpose of signing it. 
In default of such declaration, the Allies would consider the 
armistice terminated and would “take such steps as they 
thought needful to enforce their terms.” 

This ultimatum and the peremptory refusal of any further 
extension of time meant that Germany had the choice between 
immediate acceptance of the treaty without reser- Signing of 
vations and renewal of the war. Germany chose the treaty, 
to accept it, and her decision brought a relief to June 28, 1919 
tense nerves everywhere. The historic ceremony of signing 
occurred on June 28 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. 



Georges Clemenceau 




766 


The World Settlement 


The last article of the treaty provided that it should become 
effective when ratified by Germany on the one hand and by 
Exchange of three the principal Allied and Associated powers 
ratifications, on the other hand. Germany ratified it early in 
1920 ^ 10 ’ J u ty> anc ^ s i m il ar action was taken during the 
following months of 1919 by Great Britain, France, 
and Italy. The exchange of ratifications took place on January 
10, 1920, in the Clock Hall of the French Foreign Ministry at 
Paris. From this day, therefore, the Allied powers and Germany 
were once more at peace. 

An Associated power still remained technically at war with 
Germany. The United States had not ratified the treaty owing 
The United to opposition in the Senate, which, according to 
States and the Constitution, must concur by a two-thirds 
vote in all treaties made by the President. Sena¬ 
torial criticism was especially directed against certain features 
of the League of Nations, as inserted in the treaty. The chief 
stumbling-block was Article X of the covenant, which reads as 
follows: “The members of the league undertake to respect and 
preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity 
and existing political independence of all members of the league. 
In case of any such aggression, or in case of any threat or danger 
of such aggression, the Council shall advise upon the means by 
which this obligation shall" be fulfilled.” Many senators be¬ 
lieved that this article, by putting the military and naval forces 
of the United States at the disposal of the league, impaired the 
constitutional right of Congress to declare war, and might also 
result in foreign entanglements which it has always been the 
American policy to avoid. Attempts were made to amend the 
treaty by writing into it various reservations indicative of the 
precise obligations which the United States was willing to ac¬ 
cept under it. On both occasions (November, 1919, and March, 
1920) when the amended treaty came to a vote in the Senate, 
it failed to pass by the necessary two-thirds majority. The 
rejection of the treaty made the League of Nations in its ex¬ 
isting form the chief issue in the presidential campaign of 1920. 
The Republicans opposed the league and the Democrats upheld 


The Peace Conference 



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Signatures on the Peace Treaty with Germany 


































The World Settlement 


768 

it. The Republican victory, resulting in the election of Senator 
Harding, was followed in the summer of 1921 by the passage 
of a congressional resolution which declared the war of the 
United States with Germany at an end. This resolution was 
promptly signed by the President. Treaties of peace negotiated 
by the administration, not only with Germany, but also with 
Austria and Hungary, were subsequently ratified by the Senate. 


Germany’s 

western 

frontier 


209. Peace with Germany 

The peace treaty with Germany is the longest document of 
the sort ever drawn. It contains about eighty thousand words, 
Character of divided into four hundred and forty articles. The 
the treaty text j s j n English and French on opposite pages. 
After the preamble and the list of the high contracting parties, 
comes the Covenant of the League of Nations. Then follow 
the articles specifically devoted to Germany. 

The Versailles treaty made the following modifications of 
Germany’s western frontier. First of all, she gave back Alsace 
and Lorraine to France. German misgovernment 
of these two provinces since 1871 and the evident 
desire of most of their people to be reunited to 
France furnish sufficient justification for the action of the Peace 
Conference. The possession of Alsace-Lorraine, practically 
uninjured by the ravages of war, helps to compensate France for 
the destruction wrought in her northern provinces. It also 
restores the Rhine, to a great extent, as the frontier-line between 
France and Germany. Second, Germany ceded to France 
absolutely the coal mines in the Saar Basin (north of Lorraine) - 1 
This area, which was taken from France in 1815, is to be gov¬ 
erned by the League of Nations until a plebiscite is held at the 
end of fifteen years to determine whether the inhabitants prefer 
French or German sovereignty. Third, Germany agreed that 
northern Schleswig should return to Denmark in case a majority 
of the inhabitants voted for the change. 2 By this action the 

1 See the map on page 415. 

2 See the map on page 411. The results of the two plebiscites taken in the spring 
of 1920 gave a large part of northern Schleswig to Denmark. 



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HALL OF MIRRORS, VERSAILLES 

This splendid apartment contains thirty-four arches, half of them filled with windows 
overlooking the gardens, and half with large mirrors. Louis XIV used the gallery as a 
throne room. Here the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871, and here in 1919 the 
Peace of Versailles was signed. 


















Peace with Germany 


769 


Allies sought to repair the injury done by Prussia to Denmark 
in 1864. Fourth, Germany relinquished certain small districts 
on her western frontier to Belgium. 

The restoration of Poland to a place among the nations 
necessitated sweeping changes in the eastern frontier of Ger¬ 
many. She gave up the Polish districts in Prussia, Germany’s 
namely, Posen, most of West Prussia, and a part eastern 
of Upper, or Southern, Silesia. She renounced all frontier 
rights over Danzig, which, with its environs, became a free city 
under the protection of the League of Nations. Poland enjoys 
special commercial rights in Danzig and thus secures uninter¬ 
rupted access to the Baltic down the valley of the Vistula River. 
The narrow strip of territory, or “ corridor,” which connects 
Danzig with Poland, also serves to separate East Prussia from 
the rest of Germany. Finally, Germany lost Memel in East 
Prussia, an important outlet on the Baltic that was subse¬ 
quently acquired by Lithuania. These territorial losses in the 
east were borne by the Prussian kingdom, which, in conse¬ 
quence, will no longer so completely overshadow the other 
German states. The Peace Conference thus undid much of 
Frederick the Great’s work for the exaltation of Prussia. 

Germany’s name on a far-flung empire was blotted from the 
map. All her possessions overseas were taken from her. Ger¬ 
man East Africa went to Great Britain. German The German 
Southwest Africa went to the Union of South coloiues 
Africa. Togo and the Cameroons were divided between France 
and Great Britain. These territories are to be administered 
under mandates from the League of Nations. The mandate 
for the German Pacific islands north of the equator 1 is held by 
Japan, and that for the islands south of the equator, 2 by Austra¬ 
lia. New Zealand, however, received the mandate for German 
Samoa. Germany also renounced, in favor of Japan, all her 
rights in Kiauchau and the Chinese province of Shantung. 

Responsibility for all damages done to Allied civilians, both on 
the land and at sea, was assumed by Germany and her associates 

1 Pelew, Caroline, Ladrone, and Marshall Islands. 

2 German New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago, and northern Solomon Islands. 


7 ?o 


The World Settlement 


in the war. Germany therefore agreed to make good in money 
and in materials and in labor the injuries done by her armies 
in the countries overrun by them. She undertook 
to replace ton by ton the merchant vessels lost 
or damaged by her cruisers and submarines. She promised, 
furthermore, to bear the cost of the Allied armies of occupation 
in the Rhinelands. 

The amount of reparation to be collected in money and 
commodities was not fixed at first, owing to the difficulty of 
Amount of reckoning the claims against Germany and also 
reparation because of disturbed financial conditions in that 
country. The Allies set up a Reparation Commission, with 
power to inquire into Germany’s resources and to fix the time 
and manner of her contributions. The German government in 
1921 agreed to pay over a series of years the equivalent of 
132,000,000,000 gold marks (about $33,000,000,000), plus the 
amount of the Belgian debt to the Allies, but less sums already 
paid on the reparation account or subsequently to be credited 
to it. The failure of Germany to make regular payments under 
this arrangement led to the seizure by French and Belgian 
troops of the rich industrial district of the Ruhr. Matters thus 
stood at a deadlock for a time: the Germans declared them¬ 
selves practically bankrupt and unable to pay the colossal sum 
levied against them; the French and Belgians declared that they 
would continue their armed occupation of German territory 
until their demands for compensation had been satisfied. 

The deadlock was broken in 1924, when the Reparation Com¬ 
mission appointed a committee of economic experts (headed by 
The “ Dawes General Charles G. Dawes, the former Director of 
Plan ” the Budget of the United States), to devise some 

plan for the financial rehabilitation of Germany. The “Dawes 
Plan,” as it came to be called, was promptly accepted by the 
French, British, and German governments. It provides for 
an international loan to Germany of $200,000,000 to establish 
a new German state bank, stabilize the fluctuating and de¬ 
preciating currency, and make the first reparation payments. 
All subsequent payments are to be made through this bank, 


Peace with Germany 


771 


from a mortgage on the railroads and industries of Germany 
and from the proceeds of special taxes levied for. the purpose. 
If Germany fails to pay, the Allies may keep the tax money 
collected in the country. In short, Germany agrees to pawn 
her principal resources so that she may discharge at least a 
part of her indebtedness to the Allies. Military evacuation of 
the Ruhr, by France and Belgium, will follow as soon as Ger¬ 
many gives evidence of her intention faithfully to abide by the 
“ Dawes Plan.” 

The military, naval, and air clauses of the treaty were in¬ 
tended to make Germany innocuous. They include the aboli¬ 
tion of conscription, the reduction of the German Reduction of 
army to 100,000 men, including officers, and the armaments 
destruction of the fortifications west of the Rhine, those in a 
thirty-mile zone on the east bank of the Rhine, those controlling 
the Baltic, and those on Helgoland. All importation, exporta¬ 
tion, and nearly all production of war material was prohibited. 
The German fleet was reduced to a few ships without sub¬ 
marines. Airplanes, seaplanes, and dirigible balloons are not to 
be maintained for purposes of war. Germany also surrendered 
her submarine cables. These drastic requirements should 
pave the way for a general limitation of armaments by all 
nations. 

The treaty contained a clause arraigning “ William II of 
Hohenzollern, formerly German Emperor, for a supreme offense 
against international morality and the sanctity 
of treaties.” The Allies and the United States Penalties 
proposed to set up a tribunal for the trial of the kaiser, but 
Holland refused to surrender him to his foes. Another clause 
of the treaty related to the punishment of Germans accused of 
having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs 
of war. The Allies demanded from Germany no less than 
eight hundred and ninety “war criminals,” among whom were 
the crown prince, Tirpitz, the advocate of ruthless submarine 
sinkings, Hindenburg, and many other generals of high rank. 
The German government declared itself unable to meet this 
demand, without provoking a popular uprising. The Allies, 


772 


The World Settlement 


accordingly, accepted the German counter-proposal for a trial 
of the accused persons before the Supreme Court at Leipzig. 
Most of them were either acquitted or were given light sentences 
quite incommensurate with the offenses for which they were 
tried. 

Mr. Lloyd George declared that the terms of the peace treaty 
were terrible but just. President Wilson, in a message from 
Judgment of Paris to the American people, said: “It is a severe 
the treaty treaty in the duties and penalties it imposes upon 
Germany; but it is severe only because great wrongs done by 
Germany are to be righted and repaired; it imposes nothing 
that Germany cannot do: and she can regain her rightful 
standing in the world by the prompt and honorable fulfillment 
of its terms.” The contrary view was expressed from the Allied 
side by General Smuts, at that time premier of South Africa, 
who asserted that the treaty had not secured the real peace 
which the world wanted. “The promise of the new life, the 
victory of the great human ideals for which the peoples have 
shed their blood and their treasure, the fulfillment of their 
aspirations toward a new international order and a fairer, better 
world are not written in this treaty.” 

210. Peace with Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria 

The treaty with Austria was signed in September, 1919, at 
St.-Germain, near Paris. The St.-Germain Treaty did little 
Treaty of more than record an accomplished fact, namely, 
St.-Germain the disintegration of the Dual Monarchy. Austria 
ceded territory to Czecho-Slovakia and Jugoslavia and recog¬ 
nized their independence. Other parts of the former Austrian 
Empire were transferred to Italy (South Tyrol, the Trentino, 
the city of Trieste, and most of the peninsula of Istria), to 
Poland (Galicia), and to Rumania (Bukowina). 1 The treaty 
also embodied stringent provisions relating to reparation and 
disarmament. 


1 Rumania has also acquired Transylvania from Hungary and Bessarabia from 
Russia, thus becoming the largest of the Balkan states. 


Peace with Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria 773 


Austria is a republic. It came into being immediately after 
the downfall of the Hapsburg monarchy, at the close of the 
war. The new Austria is a small, inland state, Republic of 
German in culture and chiefly German in popula- Austria 
tion. The Allies, however, have refused to allow the Austrians to 



unite with their great Teutonic neighbor. Such a union, quite 
apart from the increase of German man-power, would produce 



























774 


The World Settlement 


an enlarged Germany extending from the Alps to the Baltic 
and thus would cut off western from central Europe. 

The treaty with Hungary was signed in June, 1920, at the 
Trianon, Versailles. It reduced Hungary to another small 
The Trianon state inhabited almost entirely by Magyars. 
Treaty Czecho-Slovakia secured that part of northern 

Hungary containing a predominantly Slovak population; 
Rumania, the Rumanian district of Transylvania; and Jugo¬ 
slavia, the Slovenian and Croatian territories of Hungary. The 
demands made upon Hungary for reparation and disarmament 
were substantially identical with those of the treaty with 
Austria. 

A republic was established in Hungary shortly after the sign¬ 
ing of the armistice. It lasted only a few months and then gave 
Kingdom of way to a Bolshevist regime, which was equally 
Hungary short-lived. A national parliament in 1920 chose 
as regent of the country Admiral von Horthy, a member of an 
old and distinguished Magyar family. The former emperor, 
Charles I, who made two unsuccessful efforts to regain his 
crown, was finally exiled by the Allies to the Madeira Islands, 
where he died in 1922. Hungary is now a monarchy in name, 
but the throne is unoccupied. The Allies will not permit the 
restoration of the Hapsburg dynasty. 

The treaty with Bulgaria, as signed in November, 1919, at 
Neuilly, slightly rectified the western frontier of that state in 
Treaty of favor of Jugoslavia. The frontier with Rumania 
Neuilly remains as before the war. The most important 

boundary change is on the south, where Bulgaria relinquished 
part of Thrace to Greece. Bulgaria thus lost an outlet on the 
TEgean. She was also obliged to limit her army to 20,000 men, 
to surrender all warships and aircraft, and to pay a total in¬ 
demnity of $445,000,000. 

211. Peace with Turkey 

The disposition of the decrepit Ottoman Empire presented 
one of the thorniest problems before the Peace Conference. A 
treaty with Turkey was signed at Sevres, near Paris, in 


Peace with Turkey 


775 


August, 1920, but it was never ratified, owing to the opposition 
of a new and vigorous Turkish government that had been set up 
at Angora in Asia Minor. The Nationalists, as Treaty of 
the patriotic Turks called themselves, would S ® vres 
not accept a treaty which, besides depriving them of the terri¬ 
tories overrun by the Allies in the war, also gave to Greece a 
further slice of Turkey in Europe (Eastern Thrace) and the 
city of Smyrna and its environs in Asia Minor. This part of 
Asia Minor had belonged to ancient Hellas and still contained 
a considerable Greek population. 

The Nationalists found an able leader in Mustapha Kemal, 
a Turkish officer who had won distinction in the Gallipoli cam¬ 
paign. He organized a strong army, drove the Treaty of 
Greeks out of Smyrna, and took possession of Con- Lausanne 
stantinople and Eastern Thrace. The Allies, confronted with 
this fait accompli , which their disagreements and bickerings 
with one another did so much to make possible, had to consent 
to a new treaty far more favorable to Turkey than the one 
originally framed. The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 
July, 1923. It allowed the Turks to retain both Eastern Thrace 
and Smyrna and also recognized Turkish sovereignty over the 
waterways leading from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. 
The treaty further provided for the compulsory exchange of 
Greeks living in Asia Minor for Turks living in Greece, so 
that each country might henceforth be freed from the alien 
element in its population. 

Having triumphed over the Allies, the Nationalists proceeded 
to remake the Turkish government. They deposed the sultan, 
because he had consented to the humiliating Treaty Republic of 
of Sevres, expelled him and his family from the Turke y 
country, and declared the sultanate abolished. They also did 
away with the caliphate, or spiritual authority which the Turk¬ 
ish rulers had asserted over the Moslem world. A National 
Assembly in 1923 declared Turkey a republic. The first presi¬ 
dent is Mustapha Kemal. The capital is Angora (ancient 
Ancyra) in Asia Minor. Constantinople remains, however, the 
cultural center of the republic. As their name indicates, the 


776 


The World Settlement 


Nationalists are ardent patriots. Their policy of “ Turkey 
for the Turks” has resulted in a wholesale withdrawal of Chris¬ 
tians and Jews from Asia Minor. The Nationalists have also 
got rid of the so-called “Capitulations,” or rights formerly en¬ 
joyed by foreigners in Turkey to be subject to the laws of their 
respective countries and not to Turkish laws. The new re¬ 
publican government aims to develop the economic resources of 
the country by building railroads and fostering agriculture, to 
promote education along Western lines, and, in general, to place 
Turkey among progressive nations. 

In spite of their diplomatic victory at Lausanne, the Turks 
paid heavily for allying themselves with the Central Powers. 
Countries They surrendered all claim to the non-Turkish 

freed from provinces of Kurdistan, 1 Syria, Palestine, Meso¬ 

potamia, and Arabia, thus losing about a third of 
the population and about half of the area included in the Otto¬ 
man Empire of 1914. 2 

The French hold Syria under a mandate from the Supreme 
Council of the Allies. Syria now comprises all the territory 
Syria between Turkey on the north, Mesopotamia on the 

east, Arabia (Transjordania) and Palestine on the 
south, and the Mediterranean on the west. The bulk of the 
population is of Arabic origin, Arabic is the prevailing language, 
and Islam is the leading religion. The interests of France in 
this part of the Levant are chiefly commercial, though there is 
a sentimental tradition dating back to Napoleon and even to 
the crusades. French schools and missions are also very nu¬ 
merous in the country. There is need of France in the Near East 
to maintain orderly government and gradually to lift its back¬ 
ward peoples to a higher level of civilization. Great Britain 
alone is unequal to such a task. 

The British received the mandate for Palestine. They are 
pledged to develop the Holy Land as a national home for the 


1 The mountain region in eastern Asia Minor about the headwaters of the Tigris 
River. It is inhabited mainly by the nomadic and semi-barbarous Kurds. See 
the map facing page 518. 

2 See the map facing page 522. 


Peace with Turkey 


777 


Palestine 


Jews — a people without a country for nearly eighteen hundred 
years. A good many “Zionists,” or Jewish nationalists, are 
now emigrating to Palestine, but Jews do not 
constitute as yet more than one-eighth of the total 
population. The inhabitants are mainly Arabs. 

Great Britain, having been made the mandatary for Meso¬ 
potamia, placed the country under an Arab king subject to 
British control. Iraq, as the new kingdom is 
called, is naturally one of the most favored regions Iraq 
in the world. British administration ought to redeem it from 
the long blight to which it has been subjected for centuries by 
Turkish misgovernment. With scientific agriculture and irri¬ 
gation Iraq should soon become such a granary of the Near 
East as Babylonia was in ancient times. 

The Arab kingdom of Hejaz testifies to a new birth of Islam. 
The Young Turks, in their efforts to “Ottomanize” all the 
peoples of the Ottoman Empire, 1 only succeeded Hej - az 
in alienating the Arabs, who have never forgotten 
that from their land came the Prophet, that in it are the holy 
cities of Mecca and Medina, and that Arabic is the sacred lan¬ 
guage of the Koran. An Arab revolt against Turkey broke 
cut in 1916, under the leadership of Husein, a descendant of 
Mohammed and official head ( sherif) of Mecca. 2 He was 
promptly recognized as king of Hejaz, or western Arabia, by the 
Entente Powers. Husein in 1924 had to abdicate, in conse¬ 
quence of a revolt of the Wahabis, a militant sect of Moslem 
Arabs. The political situation in Hejaz and Arabia generally 
promises to be unsettled for a long time to come. 

The slaughter of the Christian Armenians by the Turks is 
the blackest deed in all the record of the war. The victorious 
Allies proposed to group the Armenians who sur¬ 
vived into a new and independent state, protected 
by the League of Nations. The plan was never carried into 
effect, owing to the revival of Turkish power under the Nation¬ 
alists and the opposition of the Bolsheviki. Turkey recovered 
some of the Armenian districts. The remainder now form a 

2 See page 742. 


Armenia 


1 See page 530. 


778 


The World Settlement 


small republic in the Caucasus, in alliance with and subject to 
Soviet Russia. 


212. The New Nations in Central and Eastern Europe 

The victorious struggle against the Central Powers led to 
the establishment of many new nations in central and eastern 
Boundary Europe. The proper delimitation of their frontiers 

problems was a difficult task. The Peace Conference gave 

much attention to nationality as a guide to a just settlement. 
Plebiscites, or popular votes, were held in various disputed 
areas, in order to determine what were the real wishes of the 
inhabitants. The need of respecting historic rights likewise 
required consideration, together with the necessity of securing 
strategic frontiers and access to the sea for the new states about 
to be created. Racial, historical, geographical, and economic 
factors thus combined to complicate the boundary problems 
before the conference. 

One of these problems concerned the Serbo-Croats and 
Slovenes, who form the group of South Slavs, or Jugoslavs. 1 
The Jugo- In 1914 the Serbo-Croats were distributed chiefly in 
slavs the independent states of Serbia and Montenegro 

and in the following provinces of Austria-Hungary: Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, Dalmatia, and Croatia-Slavonia. The 
Slovenes were found in the province of Carniola. 2 

The state of Jugoslavia represents a voluntary union of all 
these peoples. In order to establish it, both Serbia and Monte¬ 
negro gave up their separate governments and 
Jugoslavia un ited with the former Jugoslav provinces of 
Austria-Hungary. The first ruler of the kingdom of the Serbs, 
Croats, and Slovenes — to use the official title — is Alexander I, 
former crown prince of Serbia. Belgrade is the capital. 

The formation of the new kingdom led to a long and bitter 
Italy and dispute between the Jugoslavs and the Italians. 
Jugoslavia Not satisfied with the extension of Italy into the 
Tyrol, the Trentino, and around Trieste, 3 Italian nationalists 

1 See page 497. 2 See the map on page 498. 

3 “ Unredeemed Italy ” before the World War. See pages 404 and 740. 











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Nations in Central and Eastern Europe 779 


pressed for the annexation of the important port of Fiume, 
which is predominantly Italian in population. The Jugoslavs, 
on the other hand, felt that Fiume should belong to them, as 
an outlet for their new state. The dispute was finally settled 
by making Fiume a free city (like Danzig), but closely attached 
to Italy. Jugoslavia, however, obtained the Dalmatian coast, 
to which Italy had set up a claim during the war. 

The Albanian principality created by the European powers 
in 1913 1 disappeared completely soon after the Albania 
opening of the World War. Albania now forms 
an independent republic. The country is still very backward, 
lacking good highways, railroads, newspapers, and post offices, 
while the antipathy between its Christian and Moslem inhabi¬ 
tants makes for dissension. 

How unwillingly the Czechs and the Slovaks fought for the 
Dual Monarchy in the war is a matter of common knowledge. 
More than one hundred thousand Czecho-Slovaks The Czecho- 
surrendered to the Russians, and many of them Slovaks 
promptly enlisted in the tsar’s armies. After the Russian 
Revolution it was the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia who held that 
vast country for the Allies against the Bolsheviki. Czecho¬ 
slovaks from Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States 
also volunteered in large numbers for service on the western 
front. There are few finer episodes in history than this spon¬ 
taneous uprising of a whole nation. 

The collapse of the Dual Monarchy was followed almost im¬ 
mediately by the setting-up of a Czecho-Slovak state. It em¬ 
braces Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia, Czecho- 
which together formed an independent kingdom un- Slovakia 
til its annexation by Austria in 15 26, 2 and also Slovakia. The 
latter country, once a part of Moravia, had been a Magyar 
dependency for centuries. Czecho-Slovakia is a republic with 
a constitution patterned after that of France, but with suffrage 
for both men and women. The new state occupies a central 
position between the Baltic and the Adriatic. It is rich in 
natural resources, is advanced in agriculture, trade, and manu- 

1 See pages 530 and 713. 2 Seepage 497. 


780 


The World Settlement 


facturing, and is well provided with common schools. Czecho¬ 
slovakia has every assurance of a prosperous and happy future. 
The first president is T. G. Masaryk, formerly a university 
professor. The capital is Prague. 

Hard, indeed, was the 
fate of the Poles during 

the World 
The Poles ^ar. Those 

in Russian Poland had to 
fight against their brothers 
in Galicia, Posen, and West 
Prussia. Much of their 
country formed a fiercely 
contested battle-ground, 
and destruction, famine, 
and death followed every¬ 
where in the wake of the 
contending armies. In 
1914 the tsar, Nicholas II, 
promised autonomy to all 
the Poles, both those in 
Russia and those to be 
liberated from Austrian and 
German rule. Germany 
also proposed to set up a Polish state under German tutelage. 
It was reserved for the Peace Conference, however, to create the 
free and independent Poland of 1919. 

Restored Poland includes much of the territory taken from 
that country by Austria and Prussia in the partitions of the 
eighteenth century. 1 Disputes with Soviet Russia 
about the eastern boundary of Poland led to hard 
fighting between the Poles and the Bolsheviki during 1920. 
As the outcome of negotiations with the Soviet government, 
Poland finally acquired considerably more territory than had 
been allotted to her by the Peace Conference. Like her Czecho¬ 
slovak neighbor, Poland is a republic with universal suffrage. 

1 See the maps on pages 218 and 375. 



Powder Gate, Prague 

One of the finest Gothic towers in Central Europe. 
Begun in 1475 and completed in 1506. 


Poland 

























Nations in Central and Eastern Europe 781 


She has bound herself by a special treaty with the Allies to 

maintain free institutions, under the aegis of the League of 

Nations. The first president of Poland is General Pilsudski. 

The capital of the country is Warsaw. 

The grand duchy of Lithuania, which united with Poland in 

1569, became a part of the Russian Empire after the partitions 

of Poland in the eighteenth century. 1 The tsar’s 

government made every effort to “Russify” the 

inhabitants, extinguish their sense of nationality, and force 

upon them the Orthodox Church. Such was the situation when 

the World War broke out. The Germans overran Lithuania 

during their great offensive of 1915, only to evacuate it three 

years later after the signing of the armistice. Lithuania then 

proclaimed its independence as a republic. 

The Letts, who call themselves Latvis, dwell for the most 

part in the former Russian provinces of Courland and Livonia, 

around the Gulf of Riga. They too had to fight 
. P . . . Latvia 

tor freedom against both German armies and the 

Bolsheviki. Latvia is a small but progressive republic. 

The provisional government of Russia in 1917 granted 

Esthonia a parliament, or Diet, to be elected by universal 

suffrage. After the triumph of the Bolsheviki in „ 

^ , . , _ . . . . . Esthonia 

Russia, the Diet proclaimed Lsthoman independ¬ 
ence. The Germans subsequently occupied the country, but 
their dream of annexing it went the way of the other Pan- 
German schemes. The republic of Esthonia has signed a peace 
treaty with the Soviet government, by which Russia abdicates all 
rights over her former Baltic possession. 

The Swedes conquered Finland in the twelfth century and 
retained it until 1809. 2 Finland, with the Aland Islands, then 

entered the Russian Empire as a semi-independent , , 

, , , . , .. fi Finland 

grand duchy. The Finnish parliament in 1917 

declared for complete separation from Russia. The Finns 
had to contend with both the Bolsheviki and the Germans, but 
Germany’s collapse gave them their liberty. Finland was soon 
recognized as a republic by the principal Allied powers. 

1 See pages 215-216 and 503. 2 See pages 204 and note 1, 356, and 501. 


782 


The World Settlement 


213. Socialist Germany 

Socialists assumed the leadership of the revolutionary and 
republican movements in many European countries. There 
The socialistic are two types of socialism, however. Moderate 
upheaval socialists rely on the ballot to abolish capitalism 
and introduce state ownership of the means of production: 
they are democrats in their political thinking and accept 
the democratic principle of majority rule. Radical or ex¬ 
treme socialists advocate a violent revolution to overthrow 
the capitalistic middle class, the hated bourgeoisie , and 
bring in a dictatorship of the urban proletariat. These 
socialists, therefore, preach “class conflict”; they would 
employ “ direct action” as the only effective method of re¬ 
constructing society. The contrast between the two socialistic 
parties is well marked in Germany, where the principles of 
Karl Marx and his followers first became popular among 
workingmen. 

The moderate socialists (Social Democrats) before the war 
were the chief opponents of militarism and autocracy in Ger- 
The German many, and even in 1914 a bold minority of them 
Republic resisted the war fever then sweeping over the 
country. The events of 1918 strengthened their hands; both 
the army and the navy became saturated with the revolutionary 
spirit; and a few days before the signing of the armistice in 
November a mutiny broke out among the sailors in the fleet at 
Kiel. It spread swiftly to the great ports of Bremen, Ltibeck, 
and Hamburg, and next to Potsdam and Berlin. The govern¬ 
ment could not prevent an uprising, for the soldiers in the capital 
refused to obey orders and some of them went over to the revo¬ 
lutionists. The kaiser then fled. Prince Maximilian, the 
imperial chancellor, resigned office. A socialist saddler, 
Friedrich Ebert, became head of a provisional government. 
The German Republic was born. 

The Social Democrats immediately encountered the oppo- 
i sition of the radicals, who planned to deprive the bourgeoisie 
of all power and to set up a proletarian regime. The 


Socialist Germany 


783 


Spartacans, 1 as they called themselves, were well supplied with 
arms and munitions. There were bitter conflicts between them 
and the republican troops. Law and order finally The Spar _ 
triumphed, after much bloodshed. The republicans tacans and 
also foiled several attempts by reactionary mon- monarchists 
archists to restore the old government. 

Ebert and his associates convoked a national assembly, which 
met at Weimar in 1919 and drafted a constitution. This was 
speedily ratified by a popular vote. The new 
Germany is essentially a federative republic, though ^meGerman 
still described by the old name Reich, or Empire. Republic 
Foreign affairs, colonies, immigration and emigra¬ 
tion, military organization, coinage, tariffs, and posts, telegraphs, 
and telephones are reserved to the nation as a whole. The 
eighteen confederated states 
may legislate on many other 
matters, subject, however, to 
the prior right of legislation by 
the nation. Every state must 
have a republican form of 
government. 

The constitution retains cer¬ 
tain time-honored forms and 
features of the old 
government. 2 The 
Imperial Council (Reichsrat), 
which replaces the Bundesrat, 
consists of delegates from the 
confederated states. Each state 

has at least one vote, and in the case of the larger states one 
vote is accorded to every million inhabitants. No state, how¬ 
ever, may have more than two-fifths of all the votes in the 
Reichsrat. This clause of the constitution should prevent the 
control of the council by Prussia. 


The Reichsrat 



President Ebert 


1 Spartacus was a celebrated gladiator, who in 73 b.c. organized a formidable 
revolt of slaves, outlaws, and starving peasants against the Roman Republic. 

2 See pages 484-488. 


1 -84 


The World Settlement 


The Reichstag 


Long impotent under the old imperial regime, the Reichstag 
now becomes the supreme law-making body. The Reichsrat 
may, indeed, refuse assent to a measure passed by 
the Reichstag, but its veto can be overridden by a 
two-thirds vote of the latter assembly. Members of the Reichs¬ 
tag hold office for four years. 

The president of Germany is elected by the entire people 
for a term of seven years. He is eligible to reelection. The 
President and president makes treaties, selects public officials, 
chancellor commands the military forces, and appoints and 
dismisses the chancellor, together with other members of the 
ministry. The constitutional provision requiring that the 
chancellor and his associates shall hold office only as long as 
they retain the confidence of the Reichstag gives to Germany 
substantially cabinet government. 

The Weimar Assembly of 1919, more successful than the 
Frankfort Assembly of 1849/ made Germany a genuinely 
German democratic state. All Germans are declared equal 

democracy before the law. All privileges, whether of birth, 
class, or creed, are abolished. The right of suffrage is be¬ 
stowed on all citizens, both men and women. The republic 
enjoys the support, not only of the moderate socialists, but 
also of the more liberal and progressive elements throughout 
Germany. 


214. Soviet Russia 

The Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which the Bolsheviki concluded 
with Germany early in 1918, did not long endure. The vic- 
Russia a torious Allies compelled Germany to repudiate it, 
national state thus ma ki n g possible the creation of the republics 
of Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, out of 
territories that had been forcibly incorporated in the Russian 
Empire. The Bolsheviki recognized the independence of these 
countries in accordance with the principle of self-determination 
of nationalities. They also acquiesced, reluctantly, in the 
transfer of Bessarabia to Rumania. Russia thus lost most of 


1 See pages 385-386. 


Soviet Russia 


785 


its subject and alien peoples in Europe and became a national 
state, inhabited almost entirely by Russians . 1 The capital now 
went back from Petrograd 2 to Moscow. 



The Bolsheviki reorganized the territories under their con¬ 
trol. They created a great federation, known as the Union of 
Soviet Socialist Republics. The largest and most important 

1 See the map on page 502. 

2 Called Leningrad, after the death of Lenin in 1924. 































786 


The World Settlement 


state in the federation is Soviet Russia, or, as the Bolsheviki 
prefer to call it, the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic. 
The Soviet This includes all the area occupied by Great Rus- 
federation sians in Europe, together with the former Asiatic 

provinces of the tsar’s empire. The second member of the fed¬ 
eration is White Russia. The third is Ukrainia, which com¬ 
prises those areas where Little Russians predominate. The 
federation also contains three small republics in the Caucasus, 
namely, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Soviet Russia 
grants to the other states in this union some degree of independ¬ 
ence in local concerns, but requires them to maintain a Bolshe¬ 
vist government and controls their foreign relations. The new 
federation is declared to be a decisive step toward the “ union 
of the toilers of all countries into one world Soviet Socialist 
Republic.” 

The Bolsheviki for a time encountered serious opposition on 
the part of Russian liberals and Russian reactionaries, who 
joined forces to overthrow the Soviet government. 
Their hostile attitude was natural enough, since the 
Bolshevist program provided for the elimination of 
the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. A civil war, waged with 
great ferocity on both sides, continued for several years; The 
decisive victories of the “Red” armies in 1919-1920 firmly 
established Bolshevist rule over all the territories of Russian 
race and language. The triumph of the Bolsheviki seems to be 
due chiefly to the fact that their opponents repeated the mis¬ 
take of the emigres during the French Revolution and called 
in foreign assistance from Great Britain, France, Japan, and 
the United States. This action had the effect of arousing the 
patriotic sentiment of the Russian people, who were now ready 
to support Lenin and Trotsky in repelling the invaders of their 
country. 

Russia possesses a so-called constitution, framed in 1918 by 
the Congress of Soviets, which takes the place of a national par- 
Constitution liament. The constitution grants the franchise to 
of Russia men anc [ women over eighteen years of age, if they 
are “productive” laborers. This means, in practice, that all 


Anti- 

Bolshevism 
in Russia 


Soviet Russia 


787 


business men, professional men, merchants, and bankers, as 
well as peasants who employ other peasants on their farms, 
cannot vote or hold any public office or serve in the army. 
They are not citizens, according to the Bolshevist definition of 
citizenship. Clergymen and 
monks are also excluded from 
political rights. The Bolsheviki 
have disestablished the Ortho¬ 
dox Church and have deprived 
it of state support. 

Lenin, Trotsky, and the other 
Bolshevist leaders were radical 
socialists. They The 
abolished private Bolshevist 
property in land regime 
and allowed the peasants to take 
over and divide up the great 
estates, without compensation 
to the former owners. They 
“ nationalized ” railways, banks, 
forests, and mines. They seized the factories, which were to be 
operated henceforth by the workingmen and for the working¬ 
men. They conscripted laborers from the hated middle and 
upper classes, drove them to work like chattel slaves, and even 
had them executed for “industrial desertion.” These things 
were done by a small party of communists or socialists, whose 
numbers, according to official figures, never exceeded half a 
million. In short, the Bolshevist regime was — and still is — not 
a dictatorship of the proletariat, but rather a dictatorship over the 
great mass of the Russian people. It was — and still is —• sup¬ 
ported by terrorism, which takes the form of exiling, imprison¬ 
ing, or killing all who oppose them, just as the old tsarist govern¬ 
ment disposed of its enemies. Individual liberty is non-existent 
in Soviet Russia. 

Not satisfied with their efforts in Russia, the Bolsheviki 
spread socialistic propaganda in foreign countries. Their flag 
is the red flag; their war cry is “ Workers of the World unite!”; 



Lenin 


788 


The World Settlement 


their ultimate aim is a revolution by the proletariat everywhere. 
Accordingly, they have organized the “ Third International,” 
The “Third as a successor to two other international organiza- 
intemational ” tions of socialists which had been founded by the 
followers of Karl Marx in the nineteenth century. This organi¬ 
zation, though centering in Moscow, has its agents and ad¬ 
herents in various European capitals and also in the United States. 

Closed factories, disorganized railroads, and starving cities 
were some of the immediate results of the social experimenta- 
The Russian tion of Lenin and his associates. The whole sys- 
situation tern 0 £ production and transport broke down, and, 
coupled with serious failure of crops, brought famine and death 
to many Russians. Under these circumstances the Bolsheviki 
began to compromise between socialism and capitalism, so far 
as to permit private business enterprise and private property 
in land. Russia, in fact, appears to be reverting gradually to the 
economic system of the rest of the civilized world. The Allies 
have now adopted a policy of non-intervention in Russian affairs. 
Diplomatic intercourse is being reestablished between them and 
the Soviet government, and commercial relations are also being 
resumed. Russia, whose life was so disrupted by the war, by 
the subsequent Allied blockade, and by the activities of the 
Bolsheviki, requires western capital to revive its drooping in¬ 
dustries. The rest of Europe likewise needs to draw on the 
rich natural resources of Russia for economic reconstruction. 

215. Contemporary European Politics 

The treaties concluded by the Allies with Germany at Ver¬ 
sailles, with Austria at St.-Germain, with Bulgaria at Neuilly, 
The new map with Hungary at the Trianon, and with Turkey at 
of Europe Sevres and Lausanne, together with the diplomatic 
arrangements entered into between the Allies themselves, con¬ 
stitute the Peace of Paris. The territorial changes made by the 
peace affected directly or indirectly every Continental state 
except Spain and Portugal. A new map of Europe was drawn. 

The new map is based, in large part, on the principle of self- 


Contemporary European Politics 


789 


determination, as applied to nationalities. It had received 
little or no consideration in the great treaties of Westphalia, 
Utrecht, and Vienna. Germany after her unifica- National sec¬ 
tion and Austria-Hungary and Turkey throughout determination 
the nineteenth century systematically opposed nationalism as a 
force disruptive of their empires. Russia upheld the same policy 
for the same reason. Each of these countries contained numerous 
“ submerged nationalities,” governed against their will by those 
whom they regarded as foreigners. The defeat of the Central 
Powers and the Russian Revolution offered, therefore, a unique 
opportunity to make over Europe in the name and in the 
interest of all its peoples great and small. 

Germany, Turkey, and Russia, shorn of their alien elements, 
became essentially national states. Austria and Hungary arose 
as national states, each with a homogeneous popula- National 
tion. New national states appeared in Jugoslavia, states 
Albania, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia, 
and Finland. Other countries completed their national unifi¬ 
cation: France, by the acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine; Italy, 
by securing- Italia Irredenta; and Rumania, by the incor¬ 
poration of Bukowina, Transylvania, and Bessarabia. Whether 
or not all these territorial changes prove to be permanent, they 
certainly recognized, as never before, the principle of self- 
determination. 

One obvious outcome of the war and the peace settlement 
was the lengthening of the zones of possible friction in Europe. 
Eight thousand miles of old boundary lines on Zones 0 f 
the Continent were increased to ten thousand friction in 
miles, a considerable part of this total represent- Europe 
ing newly located boundaries. Will the states whose resources 
and territory have been diminished be content with their new 
frontiers? Will the states that have secured an increase of 
resources and territory be satisfied with their gains? We may 
raise these questions, though we cannot now answer them. 
Germany, still outside the League of Nations and inspired with 
an intense hatred of France, may yet flame forth in a war of 
liberation or revenge. She cannot always be kept disarmed 


7QO 


The World Settlement 


and impotent. Russia, losing her revolutionary ideals and re¬ 
asserting her old imperialist aspirations, may sometime try to 
win back by force her former Baltic provinces and open once 
more that “ window ” on Europe which Peter the Great se¬ 
cured for her. Nor is the existing political situation in the 
Balkans and central Europe without elements of anxiety. The 
qualities of selfish ambition and envy are deep-seated, and as 
long as they exist they must complicate the relations of Euro¬ 
pean peoples to one another. 

When the World War began, two-thirds of Europe was under 
autocratic rule. Germany, which refused to accept either the 
. . principles or the practice of democracy, found 

versus natural support in reactionary Austria-Hungary, 

democracy Bulgaria, and Turkey. Autocratic Russia, it is 
true, fought on the side of the Allies, but the Russian Revolu¬ 
tion promised to enroll that country among liberal states. The 
triumph of the Central Powers would not only have dashed the 
hopes of the “submerged nationalities” in Europe; it would 
have imperiled the existence of democratic government every¬ 
where. Germany and her satellites flung down a challenge to 
the liberties of mankind. 

All know how that challenge was met. Two emperors, those 
of Germany and Austria; two tsars, those of Russia and Bul- 
Sovereigns garia; six kings, those of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, 
dethroned Wiirtemberg, Hungary, and Greece; one sultan, 
and a crowd of princes, dukes, and grand dukes renounced their 
hereditary rights and sought refuge either in obscurity or in 
exile. More than a score of sovereigns dethroned represents 
part of the balance sheet of the war. 

With the emperors, kings, princes, dukes, and grand dukes 
went the whole theory of absolutism and divine right. Mon- 
Absolutism arch y itself disappeared in most of central and 
and divine eastern Europe, only Hungary and three Balkan 
credited" states (Rumania, Bulgaria, and Jugoslavia), re¬ 
taining a semblance of one-man rule. 1 The war 
revealed, clearly enough, what ruin might be caused by the 

1 Turkey became a republic in 1923 and Greece in 1924. 


Contemporary European Politics 


79 1 


vanity, selfishness, and ambition of a few persons. They had 
long menaced the peace and happiness of the world. At last, 
the world is done with them. 

The republics and democracies that have sprung up in so much 
of Europe bid fair to be permanent. Their stability has some- 
times been threatened by the radical socialists, or Democracy 
communists, who form an appreciable element of and 
the population in many states. In Germany, as communism 
has been noted, the communists started the Spartacan up¬ 
rising, which was bloodily suppressed. An attempt by Bela 
Kun, a pupil of Lenin and Trotsky, to foment a communist 
revolution in Hungary likewise ended in failure. The efforts 
of the communists to duplicate in Italy the conditions prevailing 
in Bolshevist Russia led to the formation of the so-called Fascisti, 1 
a party which opposed the physical violence of the communists 
with still greater violence. The Fascisti found a leader in 
Benito Mussolini, a former Italian soldier in the war. He be¬ 
came a sort of temporary dictator of Italy in 1923, controlling 
both parliament and king, and carried through many govern¬ 
mental reforms. The French communists have a considerable 
representation in the Chamber of Deputies. The Labor Party, 
which for a time in 1924 controlled the British government, 
consists chiefly of moderate socialists, but with a fringe of radi¬ 
cals who support the communist movement. 

The spread of political democracy has resulted in the making 
of many new constitutions. These are generally liberal docu¬ 
ments. They establish manhood suffrage and often Liberal 
woman suffrage as well. 2 They separate Church c° nstltutl0ns 
and State, where the two had previously been united. 3 They 
also provide for a system of common schools, so that the people 
may understand and appreciate democratic institutions. Other 
noteworthy features of the constitutions are the insistence on 
ministerial responsibility to parliament — cabinet government — 
and the adoption of proportional representation, 4 in order that 

1 The fasces in Old Rome were a bundle of rods wrapped about an ax and carried 
before the highest magistrates as an emblem of authority. 

2 See pages 661-662. 3 See page 667. 4 See pages 477-478. 


792 


The World Settlement 


European Governments 


Country 

Capital 

Ruler 

Parliament 

Albania .... 

Durazzo 

Republic 

Diet 

Austria .... 

Vienna 

Republic 

Bundesrat and Nationalrat 

Belgium . . . 

Brussels 

Albert I (1909-) 

Senate and Chamber of Representa- 

Bulgaria . . . 

Sofia 

Boris III (1918-) 

fives 

National Assembly, or Sobranje 

Czechoslovakia 

Prague 

Republic 

Senate and Chamber of Deputies 

Denmark . . . 

Copenhagen 

Christian X 

Rigsdad (Landsthing and Folkething) 

Esthonia . . . 

Reval 

(1912-) 

State Assembly 

Finland .... 

Helsingfors 

Republic 

House of Representatives 

France .... 

Paris 

Republic 

Senate and Chamber of Deputies 

Germany . . . 

Berlin 

Republic 

Bundesrat and Reichsrat 

Great Britain . 

London 

George V (1910-) 

House of Lords and House of Com- 

Greece .... 

Athens 

Republic 

mons 

Buie (Council of State and Chamber 

Holland . . . 

The Hague 

Wilhelmina 

of Deputies) 

Estates-General (First Chamber and 

Hungary . . . 

Iceland .... 

Budapest 

Reykjavik 

(1890-) 

Christian X 

Second Chamber) 

Althing (Upper House and Lower 

Italy .... 

Rome 

(1912-) 

Victor Emmanuel 

House) 

Senate and Chamber of Deputies 

Jugoslavia . . 

Belgrade 

III (1900-) 
Alexander I 

National Assembly, or Naroda Skup- 

Latvia .... 

Riga 

(1919-) 

shtina 

Parliament or Saeima 

Lithuania . . . 

Vilna 

Republic 


Norway . . . 

Christiania 

Haakon VII 

Storthing (Lagthing and Odelsthing) 

Poland .... 

Warsaw 

(1905-) 

Parliament, or Seym 

Portugal . . . 

Lisbon 

Republic 

National Council and Second Chamber 

Rumania . . . 

Bukharest 

Ferdinand I 

Senate and Chamber of Deputies 

Russia .... 

Moscow 

(1914-) 

Congress of Soviets 

Spain .... 

Madrid 

Alfonso XIII 

Cortes (Senate and Congress) 

Sweden .... 

Stockholm 

(1886-) 

Gustav V 

Diet (First Chamber and Second 

Switzerland . . 

Berne 

(1907-) 

Chamber) 

Standerat and Nationalrat 

Turkey .... 

Constanti- 

Republic 

Senate and Chamber of Deputies 


nople 






















160 180 160 120 80 40 0 40 80 120 

















































































































+ • * ■' 





































i 





























* - 



























* - 




, 




















* 
































































































Contemporary European Politics 


793 


small parties and minorities may secure representation in the 
legislature. The presidents of the new republics have far less 
authority and influence than the sovereigns whom they dis¬ 
placed. Their position rather resembles that of the head of the 
French Republic. 

The World War and the Peace of Paris made an end of the 
political system that developed between 1871 and 1914. A 
Triple Alliance no longer confronted a Triple En- Break-up of 
tente. The proud dynasties of the Hohenzollerns, the Triple 
the Hapsburgs, and the Romanovs had disappeared, Alhance 
and with them their imposing empires. Germany, indeed, 
kept her unity and most of her territory, but the Allied require¬ 
ments for disarmament and reparation reduced her, for a time 
at least, to the position of a second-rate power. Austria- 
Hungary was resolved into a congeries of states, each independ¬ 
ent, each ambitious, each jealous of its liberties. Russia was 
now separated from the rest of Europe by Rumania, which 
had more than doubled in size, by a revived and powerful 
Poland, and by the new Baltic republics. 

There remained Great Britain, Italy, and France. The three 
countries after the war had neither the resources nor the desire 
to impose their will upon the rest of Europe. Great Great Britain, 
Britain, occupied with urgent problems of recon- Italy, and 
struction and burdened with new responsibilities in 
Africa and Asia, avoided Continental entanglements. Italy 
centered her interests in southeastern Europe and the Medi¬ 
terranean. France, on the other hand, once more found her¬ 
self the leading state on the Continent. She kept up the larg¬ 
est and most efficient standing army, in order to enforce the 
terms of the peace settlement upon Germany, and she made an 
alliance with Poland so that the Polish republic might serve as 
a buffer state between Germany and Russia. France thus re¬ 
covered something of her former ascendancy under Louis XIV 
and Napoleon. 

The general control of all matters springing out of the treaties 
was vested, originally, in the “ Principal Allied and Associated 
Powers.” The failure of the United States to ratify the treaties 


794 


The World Settlement 


and the abstention of Japan from European affairs reduced the 

group Of powers practically to Great Britain, Italy, and France. 

Cooperation They have cooperated, though not without friction, 

Of Great through councils of premiers and cabinet ministers 
Britain, ° . ~ , 

Italy, and from the different countries. Some important and 

France difficult international questions have been referred 

by the three powers to the League of Nations for settlement. 

Their continued and friendly cooperation is essential, if Europe 

is to recover from the war and enjoy lasting peace. 


Studies 

i. Where are Iraq, Hejaz, Anatolia, Kurdistan, Albania, Saar Basin, Schleswig, 
Upper Silesia, Istria, Eastern Thrace, Fiume, Danzig, Memel, Smyrna, and Angora? 
2. On the map between pages 6-7, locate the areas occupied by Lithuanians, Letts, 
Esthonians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians (Little Russians), Slovenians, and 
Serbo-Croats (Serbs and Croatians). 3. Indicate on an outline map the new 
boundaries of Germany and of Russia in Europe. 4. Indicate on an outline map 
the boundaries of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and Jugoslavia. 5. Explain the use 
in this chapter of the expressions: secret diplomacy, self-determination, plebiscite, 
mandate, and free city. 6. Mention some instances of plebiscites, mandates, and 
free cities provided for by the peace treaties. 7. Explain briefly: Reparation 
Commission; “Dawes Plan”; “Third International” ; Article X of the Covenant 
of the League of Nations. 8. Compare the Peace Conference at Paris with the 
Congress of Vienna as to membership, purpose, and accomplishment. 9. Indicate 
on the map between pages 778-779, the districts lost by Germany and Bulgaria, 
respectively. 10. On the same map indicate what territories have been “re¬ 
deemed” by Italy and Rumania, respectively, n. What independent states were 
set up by non-Russian peoples formerly in the Russian Empire? 12. Compare the 
boundaries of the new Poland with those of Poland before its partition (map on page 
218). 13. Name and locate the principal colonial acquisitions of Great Britain and 

France at the expense of Germany. 14. Contrast the government of socialist 
Germany with that of the German Empire. 15. Contrast the government of 
Soviet Russia with that of the Russian Empire. 16. What did Mr. Lloyd George 
mean by saying, “This is a war of nationalities” ? 17. What did President Wilson 

mean by saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy”? 18. Show how 
the World War and the Peace of Paris contributed to the realization of both nation¬ 
alism and democracy in Europe. 19. What European states have a republican 
form of government? What ones are democratic monarchies? 20. How many 
independent countries were there in Europe in 1914? How many are there now? 
21. Name and locate the capitals of the new European states. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE WORLD TO-DAY 1 
216. The Cost of the World War 

The World War deserved its name. It cast a dark shadow 
over almost the entire globe. Nothing like it had ever happened 
before. Twenty-eight countries, with their colonial a world 
dependencies, took up arms, while five Latin-Ameri- war 
can countries severed diplomatic relations with Germany. 
Only sixteen countries (Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, 
Norway, Sweden, Abyssinia, Persia, Afghanistan, Mexico, 
Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay, and Argen¬ 
tina), with less than one-sixteenth of the world’s population, 
remained neutral. Even neutrals, however, could not escape 
the dislocations resulting from a war of such magnitude. 

The Allies mobilized about forty million men and the Central 
Powers about twenty million men, making a grand total of 
sixty million combatants from beginning to end Blood cQgt 
of the struggle. It is impossible to give an exact 
statement of the casualties. Probably ten million soldiers 
lost their lives in battle or as a result of wounds, accidents, and 
disease. Probably twenty million soldiers were* wounded, 
perhaps a quarter of them being permanently disabled in body 
or in health. The death loss among non-combatants, as the 
result of pestilence, famine, and massacres, has been estimated 
at twenty millions. The total mortality directly traceable to 
the World War would thus amount to thirty millions. These 
appalling figures must be greatly increased if account is taken of 
the loss of population due to the decline of the normal birth-rate 
and the increase of the normal death-rate among European 
peoples. Not more than five million lives were lost in battle 
in all the wars from the time of the French Revolution to 1914. 

1 Webster, Historical Source Book, No. 20, “Holy Alliance, 1815”; No. 33, 
“Covenant of the League of Nations, 1919-” 

795 


796 


The World To-day 


The ten million soldiers who fell in the war were mostly 
picked men. They had passed tests for physical and mental 
The war fitness; they were in the prime of life and health 
and the race an d strength; they should have been the virile 
fathers of the next generation. France, who lost altogether 
1,750,000 soldiers, had sixty per cent of her young men killed in 


iroo 



From “The War with Germany,” published by U. S. War Department. 

battle or as the result of battle. The mortality among the 
youth in the German, British, and other European armies doubt¬ 
less reached almost as high a figure. This is necessarily the 
outcome of the system of selective conscription, 1 where the 
fittest go to the slaughter and the weaklings remain at home. 
The war, therefore, injured the race fiber of the principal Euro¬ 
pean nations. Its effects in this direction may make themselves 
felt for many decades, possibly for centuries. 


1 See pages 714, 733, and.749. 










The Cost of the World War 


797 


A conservative estimate of the direct money cost of the war 
to the belligerent nations is $186,000,000,000. This sum, 
colossal as it is, does not take into account the 
indirect cost, including the destruction of property Money cost 
on land and sea, the depreciation of capital, the interruption of 
trade, the loss of production due to the employment of the 



Money Cost to the Combatant Nations for Direct War 
Expenses, to the Spring or 1919 

From “The War with Germany,” published by U. S. War Department. 

world’s workers in military activities, the payments for war 
relief, and the expenditures of neutral nations. Such items, 
in the aggregate, would amount to many more billions. How¬ 
ever, any estimate of either the direct or the indirect cost is 
more or less fallacious, .unless it allows for the tremendous and 
rapid depreciation of the currencies in all European countries 
during the war period. Measured in dollars the total expendi¬ 
ture was one thing; measured in terms of labor and commodities 
it was another and lesser thing. The figure given above for the 











798 The World To-day 

direct cost must be halved, if it is to be adjusted to the purchas¬ 
ing power of currencies before the war began. But even 
$93,000,000,000 is a sum so great as almost to defy the imagina¬ 
tion. It is a thousand dollars for every mile of the distance 
between our earth and the sun. All the wars from the time of the 
French Revolution to 1914 cost not more than $25,000,000,000. 

The war was financed to some extent by increased taxation, 
especially in Great Britain and the United States, but chiefly 
War finance ^y borrowing. The nations, in the first place, 
issued vast quantities of paper money. Such forced 
loans are easily made on the Continent, where the governments 
control the banks and possess a monopoly of note issue. The 
enormous sums thus put into circulation are a primary cause 
of the rise of prices abroad, increasing several times over the 
cost- of labor and commodities as measured in terms of the 
money unit. One of the financial problems confronting Europe 
is the speedy withdrawal of a large part of these notes from 
circulation. In the second place, the nations sold their bonds, 
or promises to pay, to all who would buy them. The amounts 
raised were far greater than had been supposed possible. The 
people bought the bonds out of their savings, for the war taught 
lessons of thrift to almost every one and made it a patriotic duty 
for the citizen to save that his country might have more to spend. 
The bonds will be mostly funded into long-time obligations 
running many years before maturity. 

The end of the war left the whole financial world in chaos. 
All the belligerents had to impose heavy additional taxation, 
in order to meet the interest on their huge debts and repair the 
destruction caused by the struggle. Many of them found it 
Finance difficult to avoid bankruptcy. Great Britain and 
after the war United States were the only important bellig¬ 
erents which from the start balanced their budgets and did not 
show a large gap between income and expenditure. Some of the 
countries, particularly Germany and Russia, indulged for a time 
in an orgy of paper-money inflation, with the result that both 
the mark and the ruble became practically worthless. Even the 
French franc depreciated to about a fourth of its pre-war value. 


799 


The Cost of the World War 


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8 oo 


The World To-day 

The financial burden which our own and future generations 
must carry is shown by the gigantic national debts. These 
National now total nearly ten times what they were before 

debts the war. Seven belligerents alone — Bulgaria, 

Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Portugal — owed 
in 1920 no less than $128,000,000,000, as compared with 
$14,000,000,000 in 1913. The debt of Great Britain, at the 
peak in 1920, was $40,000,000,000; that of the United States, 
at the peak in 1919, was in excess of $26,000,000,000. Both 
these countries are now paying off their indebtedness — the 
United States doing so at the rapid rate of about a billion a year. 
During the war the Allies borrowed about $10,000,000,000 from 
the United States. Great Britain, Poland, and some of the 
smaller Continental states have begun to meet the interest 
charges on what they owe and to liquidate the principal. It is 
expected that the British debt to the United States will be 
completely extinguished in sixty years. Payments made by 
other European countries to the United States will likewise 
be spread over a long period of time. The Russian debt, 
both internal and external, which had reached a high figure at 
the time of the Revolution, was repudiated by the Bolsheviki. 
The Turkish Nationalists, by repudiating the indebtedness 
which the old Ottoman Empire contracted abroad, have taken 
the same short and easy, if dishonorable, step toward financial 
rehabilitation. 

The general economic situation in Europe has been summed 
up by the Supreme Council as follows: “ The process of recovery 
Reconstruc- of Europe must necessarily be a slow one, which 
tion cannot be expedited by short cuts of any descrip¬ 

tion. It can be most seriously hampered by the dislocation of 
production, by strikes, lockouts, and interruption of work of 
all kinds. The civilization of Europe has indeed been shaken 
and set back, but it is far from being irretrievably ruined by the 
tremendous struggle through which she has passed. The 
restoration of her vitality now depends on the whole-hearted 
cooperation of all her childten, who have it in their own power 
to delay or accelerate the process of reconstruction.” 


Lessons of the World War 


801 


217. Lessons of the World War 

No competent historian has ever held Austria-Hungary and 
Germany entirely responsible for the World War. Long before 
1914 mighty forces making for war had been opera¬ 
tive in the international world, forces that needed Jesponsibmty 
only to be released to precipitate a conflict. What for modern 
these were we have already learned. First, there warfare 
was extreme nationalism, 1 a sentiment which had gained 
ground all through the nineteenth century. It bred ill-will 
between European peoples. It made difficult any real sympathy 
or understanding between them. Each people developed an 
exaggerated sense of “national honor” and, like a duellist, pro¬ 
fessed its readiness to fight “at the drop of the hat” on any 
occasion of the slightest insult to the government or even to 
a single citizen. Second, there was economic imperialism, 2 
producing European expansion, annexations of foreign terri¬ 
tory, and the struggle for markets, concessions, investments, 
and spheres of influence in new and undeveloped regions. Such 
advantages were often gained by sheer force or by diplomatic 
pressure backed by armies and navies. Third, there was secret 
diplomacy, and connected therewith, the whole system of en¬ 
tangling alliances. 3 Enormous power was thus placed in the 
hands of ambassadors and foreign-office ministers. They often 
made the most serious and binding agreements without the 
knowledge of the people at large or even the knowledge of parlia¬ 
ments. Fourth, there was militarism, and the wasteful, fear- 
producing competition in armaments. 4 Still other forces made 
for international hostility. The presence in Europe of so many 
“submerged nationalities,” longing for independence and self- 
government, constituted a grave danger. The numerous terri¬ 
torial and boundary disputes, resulting from previous wars and 
ill-made peace treaties, also contributed to the general insecurity. 
Clearly enough, no one nation, or group of nations, could be 
wholly blamed for this international situation. Austria- 

1 See pages 387-389, 700. 2 See pages 533 - 534 , 708. 

3 See pages 701-703- 4 See pages 713-715- 


802 


The World To-day 


Hungary and Germany did indeed hurl the flaming torch that 
kindled the great conflagration, but Europe was a powder house 
in 1914. 

The World War involved Europe, the largest part of North 
America and South America, much of Africa, two-thirds of Asia, 
Modem and mos t of Oceania. Improved methods of trans¬ 
warfare portation and communication have brought all 
world-wide civilized peoples so close together that a shot fired 
in the Balkans soon provoked an international crisis and at 
length produced an international conflict. The nations, while 
remaining politically independent, are now economically and 
socially interdependent. Their isolation is forever ended. 
What concerns one concerns all. The fate of one becomes the 
fate of all. It was impossible to localize the last war; it will 
be equally impossible to localize the next war. 

Everything indicates that the next war, if on the scale of the 
last one, will be still more destructive of life and property. 
Modem Airplanes, submarines, battleships, and armament 

warfare are being rapidly improved. We now have an 

automatic cannon which fires one hundred and 
twenty shells a minute, and a sixteen-inch gun which hurls a 
projectile weighing more than a ton for a distance of twenty- 
seven miles. Demolition bombs, four hundred pounds in 
weight, were occasionally used during the last war; now four 
thousand-pound bombs are available. One of these bombs, 
skillfully dropped from an airplane, would wreck the Woolworth 
Building. “Tanks ” are evolving into land battleships, equipped 
with field guns as well as machine guns. Poison gases of incred¬ 
ible malignity, powerful enough to disable or kill thousands 
of people at one time, have been discovered and perfected. Nor 
does the ghastly catalogue end here. Disease germs, capable 
of polluting the water supply of whole areas, blight to destroy 
crops, anthrax to slay horses and cattle, and plague to sweep 
away entire populations are being prepared in the chemical 
laboratories of more than one great country. There is even 
the possibility of the discovery of some lethal electric ray which 
can be projected into space with deadly effect. Modern warfare, 


The Peace Movement 


803 


by utilizing all the agencies of modern science, threatens to 
become a sort of collective suicide of the nations. Whole popu¬ 
lations will take part in it, men, women, and children doing 
their utmost, and all exposed to the fury of the enemy. Every 
means to beat down the foe and enforce a decision will be em¬ 
ployed. Mr. Lloyd George spoke soberly when he declared 
that another war will be against civilization. He might have 
added, it will destroy civilization. 

218. The Peace Movement 

Christianity introduced into Europe an exalted conception 
of the sacredness of human life. It condemned homicide of any 
kind, and therefore regarded war as unlawful under EarJy 
any circumstances. Had not Christ declared that Christianity 
“ all they that take the sword shall perish with the and warfare 
sword”? 1 The Christian Church formed, in fact, the first 
peace society and launched the first peace movement. This 
pacifist attitude could not be maintained, at a time when the 
Roman Empire was assailed on almost every side by barbarian 
invaders. The Church had to accommodate her teaching 
about war to the practice of a warlike age. She began by ad¬ 
mitting the legitimacy of defensive warfare, but erelong sanc¬ 
tioned aggressive warfare as well. After Christianity became 
the official religion of the Empire in the fourth century, the 
militarization of the Church proceeded apace. The use of 
the cross on the standards of the imperial army testified to the 
change that had come over the spirit of Christianity. 

The Church in the Middle Ages, while by no means a pacifist 
organization, in general cast its influence on the side of peace. 
It deserves credit for establishing the Truce of The me dieval 
God and for many efforts to stamp out private Church and 
warfare between feudal nobles. The Church, how¬ 
ever, encouraged public warfare against heretics and infidels. 
Medieval Christians believed that it was a religious duty to 
exterminate these enemies of God. The institution of chivalry 
and the military orders of monks, such as Templars and 

1 Matthew, xxvi, 52. 


804 The World To-day 

Hospitalers, illustrate the union between Christianity and 
militancy. 

The rise of Protestantism did not produce a change in the 
position of official Christianity toward war. Most of the 
Protestantism Protestant churches were state churches, and their 
and warfare ministers, considering themselves as in the service 
of the state, usually supported whatever war their government 
undertook. Nevertheless, Christian sects arose which repro¬ 
bated all war. The English Lollards in the fourteenth century 
taught that homicide in war is forbidden by the New Testament. 
The sixteenth-century Anabaptists, who had many adherents 
in Germany and other countries, believed that Christians should 
not bear arms or offer forcible resistance to wrongdoers or wield 
the sword. The Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers), 
likewise took an attitude of uncompromising pacifism. 1 

Strong protests against war were voiced at various times by 
isolated reformers, for instance, by Erasmus, Voltaire, and 
Peace Tolstoy. The nineteenth century saw the rise of 

agencies peace societies, numbering several hundreds 

throughout the world. Their first international congress took 
place as early as 1843. These societies held regular meetings 
and maintained a permanent bureau at Bern, Switzerland. 
They helped to arouse public sentiment in favor of compulsory 
arbitration, the restriction of armaments, and the removal of 
the causes of war. Useful work for peace was also done by such 
unofficial bodies as the Institute of International Law and the 
Inter-Parliamentary Union. The Pan-American Union, founded 
in 1890, had for its purpose the furtherance of good relations 
among all the twenty-one republics of the New World. The 
peace movement was also promoted by private benefactors. 
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other 
explosives, who left his fortune for the establishment of inter¬ 
national prizes, directed that one of these should be annually 
awarded to the person or society rendering the greatest service 
to the cause of human brotherhood. Andrew Carnegie gave 
ten million dollars as an endowment to hasten the abolition of 

1 See page 283. 


The Peace Movement 


805 



international war, “the foulest blot on our civilization.” The 
endowment was particularly intended to encourage studies in 
economics, history, and international law, so that the world’s 
peoples might know one another better and so avoid many 
sources of friction between them. 

What is called international law arose as an attempt to frame 
rules acceptable to all nations and binding upon them in their 
relations with one another. These rules at first international 
had most to do with the conduct of war. Hugo law 
Grotius, the venerated founder of international law, lived during 
the Thirty Years’ War and wrote his truly epoch-making treatise, 
On the Law of War and Peace , 
to lessen the horrors of that 
conflict. “I saw prevailing 
throughout the Christian world 
a license in making war of which 
even barbarous nations would 
have been ashamed. Recourse 
was had to arms for slight 
reasons or no reason; and when 
arms were once taken up, all 
reverence for divinte and human 
law was thrown away, just as 
if men were henceforth author¬ 
ized to commit all crimes with¬ 
out restraint.” 1 After the time 
of Grotius, the field of interna¬ 
tional law steadily widened 
until not only the regulation of 

warfare, but also the preservation of peace became the ideal of 
statesmen, publicists, and all lovers of mankind. 

The catastrophe of 1914-1918 has given new strength to the 
peace movement. Thoughtful men are now impressed, as never 
before, by the horrors of past conflicts. They are Abolition 
apprehensive of fresh horrors to come. They are of war 
aware that no limits, except the habitable globe itself, can be 

1 Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, Prolegomena, 28. 


Hugo Grotius 

After the portrait by Miervelt of Grotius at 
the age of forty-nine. 


8 o6 


The World To-day 


set to the possible scope of another conflict. They realize that the 
roots of war sink deep into the soil of the past and that all coun¬ 
tries are responsible, in greater or less degree, for its existence. 
They ask, therefore, if the time has not come to end forever 
armed conflict between the nations. Cannot it be abolished, as 
cannibalism, human sacrifice, blood revenge, witchcraft, slavery, 
and other anti-social practices have been abolished by the com¬ 
mon sense of mankind ? If this is to be done, we now perceive 
that it can only be done by international organization. 

219. International Organization 

The idea of maintaining peace by international agreements is 
not new. Several great wars have been followed by projects 
Early peace for the prevention of future conflicts. After the 
projects religious struggles of the sixteenth century in 

France came the “Grand Design” of Henry IV, inspired, it is 
said, by his minister Sully. The development of this plan for 
a European Confederation or Christian Republic was frustrated 
by the assassination of the French king. Near the close of the 
seventeenth century, William Penn wrote a prophetic Essay 
towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1692). Penn 
argued that an international Diet or Parliament, obeying “ the 
same rules of justice and peace by which parents and masters 
govern their families, magistrates their cities, estates their 
republics, and princes and kings their principalities and king¬ 
doms,” could abolish warfare between the nations. The French 
revolutionary wars produced Immanuel Kant’s Toward Per¬ 
petual Peace (1795). In this work the great German philosopher 
declared that perpetual peace might be secured by an inter¬ 
national union of states and that such a union would become 
feasible when autocracies gave way to democracies. 

It was the autocrats, however, who made the first attempt 
at a League of Nations. In 1815, after Europe had been ex- 
The Holy hausted by the struggle against Napoleon, the 
Alhance tsar, Alexander I, joined with Francis I of Austria 
and Frederick William III of Prussia in a so-called Holy Alliance. 
The three rulers pledged themselves “ in the name of the Most 


International Organization 


807 


Holy and Indivisible Trinity” to take for their sole guide hence¬ 
forth “the precepts of justice, Christian charity, and peace.” 
They further promised to remain united “by the bonds of a 
true and indivisible fraternity,” and “on all occasions and in 
all places” to lend each other aid and assistance. Several other 
European sovereigns later signed this pledge, conspicuous ex¬ 
ceptions being the Pope, the Sultan, and George IV, the British 
Prince Regent. Though a praiseworthy attempt to apply much 
needed principles of morality to international relations, the 
Holy Alliance never had any real importance. Most statesmen 
agreed with Metternich’s characterization of it as a “loud- 
sounding nothing.” It soon faded into oblivion, being replaced 
by the far more practical Concert of Europe. 1 

The five great powers, Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, 
and Russia, who formed the Concert, did not keep peace through¬ 
out the nineteenth century. Their conflicting in- The European 
terests and especially their nationalistic aspira- Concert 
tions more than once led to hostilities between them. Never¬ 
theless, the idea of a Concert persisted, and from time to 
time the great powers imposed their will upon the whole of 
Europe. They neutralized Switzerland in 1815 and Belgium in 
1839. At the Congress of Paris in 1856, which concluded the 
Crimean War, they signed the Declaration of Paris, providing 
rules for the conduct of maritime warfare. 2 By the Geneva 
Convention in 1864 they undertook to ameliorate warfare by 
land and organized the International Red Cross, with branches 
in every civilized country. 3 In 1878 the great powers, now 
including Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, 
Italy, and Russia, met in the Congress of Berlin for the settle¬ 
ment of the Eastern Question. Nor was the Concert confined 
to Europe. It organized the Congo Free State 4 under inter¬ 
national guarantees, neutralized the Suez Canal, 5 cooperated 
with Japan and the United States to suppress the Chinese 
“Boxers,” 6 and held the Algeciras Conference 7 to deal with the 
Moroccan problem. 

1 See pages 361-362. 2 See page 629. 3 See page 660. 4 See page 540. 

s See page 546. 6 See page 558. 7 See page 709. 


8 o8 


The World To-day 


The nations also began to resort increasingly to arbitration 
as a means of adjusting differences between them. Great 
International Britain and the United States, for instance, 
arbitration arbitrated the Alabama claims after the Civil War 
and in the same way ended a boundary dispute between British 
Guiana and Venezuela, which threatened for a time to involve 
the two great English-speaking peoples in fratricidal strife. 
Over two hundred awards were made by arbitral courts during 
the nineteenth century, and every one was executed. After 
1900 many leading countries concluded treaties with each other, 
pledging themselves to submit to arbitration all controversies 
except those affecting national honor or vital interests (such as 
independence). 

International arbitration received a great impetus at the two 
Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907. 1 The assembled powers 
The Hague could not agree to limit armaments, but besides re¬ 
conferences vising the laws of war they set up a court of arbitra¬ 
tion, to which the nations might resort. Though without author¬ 
ity to enforce its decrees, the Hague Tribunal did settle a number 
of controversies which in earlier days might have led to war. 
It thus marked a distinct advance toward international peace. 

Then came the World War. Austria-Hungary and Germany 
abruptly withdrew from the European Concert, rejected every 
An proposal for arbitration or mediation, and, after 

international hostilities began, proceeded to violate treaty 
obligations and the recognized usages of warfare, 
both by land and sea. The Allies, in consequence, became the 
defenders of international law, as well as the champions of 
nationality and democracy. Their enormous sacrifices during 
the struggle promised to be in vain, unless some means could 
be found to preserve the sanctity of treaties and prevent future 
aggressive wars. An international league began to seem, not 
a utopian scheme, but rather a practical necessity for the peace 
and security of mankind. Such thoughts as these were re¬ 
peatedly expressed by responsible statesmen among the Allies 
especially by Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson. 

1 See page 716. 


The League of Nations 

220 . The League of Nations 


809 


As soon as the Peace Conference opened at Paris, a committee 
representing the Allied and Associated governments began work 
on the various proposals which had been put for- Formation 
ward from time to time for an international league, of the 
The committee presented the first draft of a con- league 
stitution to the conference in February, 1919. Various modi¬ 
fications of it were made as the result of world-wide discussion, 
and the amended document was then inserted in the peace 
treaty with Germany. The signing of that treaty and its sub¬ 
sequent ratification set up the League of Nations in active 
operation. 

The constitution, or Covenant, of the League of Nations was 
written in large part by President Wilson. It is a short, simple, 
and dignified document. The objects of the organi- Covenant 
zation are thus stated in the preamble: “The of league 
High Contracting Parties, in order to promote international 
cooperation and to achieve international peace and security, by 
the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, by the pre¬ 
scription of open, just, and honorable relations between nations, 
by the firm establishment of the understandings of international 
law as the actual rule of conduct among governments, and by 
the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty 
obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another, 
agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.” 

The League of Nations consists of an Assembly, in which each 
member has one vote and not more than three representatives; 
a Council, made up of representatives of Great 
Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, together with 0rgamzatlon 
representatives of six other members of the league; and a per¬ 
manent Secretariat at Geneva, Switzerland. The Assembly 
holds a meeting once a year at Geneva, for the admission of new 
members and for the discussion of matters of international 
interest. Such power as the league possesses is in the hands of 
the ten members of the Council, who meet every few months 
and decide on action to be taken in the name of the league. 


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The League of Nations 


8 n 


All important decisions of the Council require a unanimous vote. 

Forty-one nations 1 were represented by delegates at the first 
meeting of the Assembly of the league in 1920. Accessions to 
the league were made at subsequent meetings, 
until in 1924 its membership included fifty-five Membership 
nations. For the future, any self-governing state, dominion, 
or colony may be enrolled by a two-thirds vote of the members. 
Any member may, after two years’ notice, withdraw from the 
league, if at the time of withdrawal it has fulfilled all its inter¬ 
national obligations. 

The only important countries remaining outside the league 
are Germany, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. 
The Central Powers were excluded at first as hav- Non _ 
ing been so recently enemy states. Russia and members 
Mexico were not invited to join because they had not set up 
stable governments. The reasons why the United States 
refused membership in the league have been mentioned in the 
preceding chapter. 2 The abstention of these great and powerful 
countries seriously limits the authority of the league. It cannot 
function with entire efficiency in European affairs until Germany 
and Russia are admitted and assigned seats on the Council. 
Nor can it become in the fullest sense a world organization as 
long as the United States continues to be a non-member. 

Some important duties arising out of the Peace of Paris were 
intrusted to the league. It administers the internationalized 
areas, including the Saar Valley, Danzig, and 
Fiume. 3 It also supervises the government of u 16 
mandated territories, comprising the former colonies of Germany 
and the countries in the Near East liberated from Turkey. 4 
The mandatory system represents a praiseworthy departure 
from the usual method of disposing of enemy territories con¬ 
quered in war. These territories, instead of being annexed, will 
be governed by the conquerors as trustees, at their own expense 

1 Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and India are each 
represented in the Assembly of the league, as well as the United Kingdom. The 
Irish Free State is also a member of the league. 

2 See page 766. 3 See pages 768, 769, 779. 


4 See pages 769, 776-777. 


8l 2 


The World To-day 


and without any definite benefit to themselves. They must 
submit an annual report to the league, which has final authority 
to pass judgment on the discharge of their trusteeship. The 
mandatory system rests on the principle that backward and 
undeveloped countries, unable as yet to achieve or preserve 
independence, ought to be treated as international responsibil¬ 
ities, not as opportunities for national profit and aggrandize¬ 
ment. Such countries should be governed in the interest of 
the inhabitants and for the common advantage of the world. 
If these good intentions are realized, a step will have been taken 
in getting rid of some of the evils of “imperialism.” 

The league serves as a convenient agency for dealing with 
matters that concern all its members, such as the prevention 
and control of disease, the regulation of the traffic 
in dangerous drugs, and, in conjunction with the 
Red Cross, the mitigation of suffering throughout 
the world. In the first eight months of 1924 there 
were no less than seventy-six of these international gatherings 
at Geneva. A very important department of the league, the 
International Labor Office, is concerned with the betterment of 
industrial conditions in the various countries. 1 The league also 
has a Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, made up of dis¬ 
tinguished European savants. They hold meetings from time 
to time, in order to promote a common understanding among 
scholars and scientists everywhere. One of the provisions of 
the Covenant requires that any treaty or international engage¬ 
ment concluded by league members shall be registered with 
the Secretariat and published. Unless so registered it shall 
not be binding. This regulation, if faithfully observed, should 
do away with the old “secret diplomacy.” 

The Covenant, in its present form, declares that a war or 
even a threat of war is a matter of concern to the whole league. 
The league The members P romise to submit any dispute likely 
and inter- to result in a rupture either to arbitration or to in- 

national peace qu i ry by the Council. If the dispute is submitted 
to arbitration, they pledge themselves to carry out in good faith 

1 See page 640. . 


The league 
and inter¬ 
national 
cooperation 


© Harris-Ewing © Underwood Sr 5 Undcrwood 

WOODROW WILSON DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 



















































' 



































The League of Nations 


8i3 


any award that may be rendered and not to resort to war. If 
the dispute is submitted to inquiry by the Council and the report 
of that body is unanimously agreed to by all the members (ex¬ 
cept those that are parties to the dispute), they also pledge 
themselves not to resort to war. In case the Council's report is 
not unanimous, they agree not to go to war until three months 
after the report has been made. Should a member take up arms, 
in disregard of these agreements, it will be considered as having 
committed an act of aggression toward all other members. 
They must then sever trade and financial relations with it, thus 
subjecting it to economic ostracism — a sort of international 
boycott. The Council of the league may further recommend 
(but not require) that the members contribute military, naval, 
or air forces for use against the recalcitrant state. No occasion 
for the use of such measures to protect the Covenant has yet 
arisen. The obligations of league members are further defined 
by the famous Article X, 1 which declares that they will respect 
and preserve “as against external aggression” by non-member 
states the territory and independence of one another. 

The league was five years old in 1925. Up to that time it had 
headed off or snuffed out at least six wars between European 
countries. These would have been minor wars at Accomplish 
the start, but no one can tell how great they might ments of 
have become before they ended. The league settled the league 
a serious dispute between Sweden and Finland as to the owner¬ 
ship of the Aland Islands; 2 it gave the islands to Finland, and 
Sweden acquiesced in the decision. The very troublesome 
question of the division of Upper Silesia 3 between Germany and 
Poland was referred to the league for solution; its award, draw¬ 
ing a new frontier line, was accepted by both countries. The 
league has aided in the rehabilitation of Austria and Hungary 
by means of international loans to these almost bankrupt coun¬ 
tries and by the supervision of their finances. The humanitarian 
activities of the league are numerous. It has returned to their 
homes about three hundred thousand prisoners of war in Russia 
and other countries. It has checked an epidemic of typhus and 

2 See page 781. 3 See page 769. • 


1 See page 766. 


814 


The World To-day 


bubonic plague in eastern Europe that might easily have spread 
over the entire Continent. It is engaged in efforts to stamp out 
the traffic in opium, a drug which has become such a curse in 
Oriental countries. It has provided for the holding in 1925 of 
a conference of the principal nations to frame a convention with 
respect to the international trade in arms, munitions, and imple¬ 
ments of war. The treaties signed by various nations of 
central Europe, to remove discrimination against racial and 
linguistic minorities within their borders, form still another 
accomplishment of the league. 

The league is by no means perfect. The Council probably 
has too much authority and the Assembly too little authority. 
The league The g reat states have undue influence in it; the 
to-day smaller but more numerous states deserve more 

recognition than they have yet received. The league, in other 
words, needs to be made more democratic. Its gravest weak¬ 
ness, however, is due to the fact that several major countries do 
not belong to it. Rejected by the United States, scorned by 
Soviet Russia, distrusted by Germany, and not always trusted 
by the Allied governments themselves, the league still lacks 
both power and resources to deal finally with the larger political 
issues confronting Europe. The league, nevertheless, has 
justified its existence, if only because of its functions in regard 
to internationalized areas and mandated territories. Its services 
as a clearing-house for the whole world, in matters economic and 
humanitarian, are likewise of great importance. Finally, by 
its labors in the cause of peace, the league is gradually accustom¬ 
ing the nations to accept some measure of supervision over their 
foreign relations. As long as the nations considered themselves 
entirely sovereign, able to fight when and how and whom they 
pleased, there was nothing to prevent a strong country from 
attacking and perhaps conquering a weak country. This is 
“international anarchy,” the tap root of all modern warfare. 
The league has begun to deal with these anarchical conditions, 
not only through the provisions of the Covenant, but also by 
the establishment of a “World Court” and by an agreement, 
or Protocol, for the outlawry of war. 


The World Court and the Geneva Protocol 815 

221. The World Court and the Geneva Protocol 

The Covenant of the league provided for the establishment of 
a Permanent Court of International Justice to facilitate the 

peaceful settlement of disputes between the na- . 
r . A supreme 

tions. Such a “ World Court” was set up at The court of the 

Hague, Holland, in 1922. It consists of eleven natlons 
eminent judges chosen by the Council and the Assembly of the 
league and representing diverse races, languages, nationalities, 
and legal codes. All of the major countries, except Germany, 
Russia, and the United States, and most of the minor countries, 
have signified their adherence to this organization. The United 
States seems likely to join at an early date. The Republican 
platform of 1924, besides pledging American cooperation with 
the league in humanitarian matters, approved the court and 
promised American membership therein. The “World Court” 
is, indeed, as essential an accompaniment of international union 
as is the Supreme Court of our union of states. 

The Hague Tribunal 1 is not a court in the proper sense of 
the word, being merely a panel of names from which arbitrators 
may be selected when desired by various govern- The court 
ments. The “ World Court,” on the contrary, is and the 
a body of permanent judges holding regular ses- 
sions in a definite place and at definite times. It 
may hear and determine any justiciable question (one relating 
to the interpretation of a treaty or to a matter of international 
law), which is submitted to it by the parties concerned. It does 
not have compulsory jurisdiction, however, unless the parties 
agree in advance to accept such jurisdiction. In this respect 
the “World Court” resembles the Hague Tribunal. The court 
also acts as a legal adviser to the League of Nations, being em¬ 
powered to give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or ques¬ 
tion referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly. 

The “World Court” can act only according to international 
law, and there are many subjects in regard to which no such law 
is at present applicable. Some of the great jurists of the world 


1 See pages 716 and 808. 


8i6 


The World To-day 


are now engaged in the preparation of an enlarged and im¬ 
proved international code. When completed, it will probably 
The court su h m itted to the different governments, and, 

and inter- if approved by them, it will then become the basis 
national law 0 f decisions by the court. This new code promises 
to carry forward the work of Grotius and his successors on the 
“Law of War and Peace.” 

i 

i 



The Peace Palace at the Hague 

A gift of Andrew Carnegie for the use of the Hague Tribunal and for international 
conferences. It is also the seat of the new “ World Court.” 


The Hague Tribunal of 1899, the League of Nations of 1920, 
and the “World Court” of 1922 have arisen in response to the 
The Geneva longing of the civilized world for peace. These 
Protocol institutions make it more difficult than ever before 

for nations to fight one another, but they still recognize the right 
of nations to appeal to the sword. They do not outlaw war. 
Action in this direction was taken, for the first time in history, 
when the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations adopted 
at Geneva in October, 1924, a Protocol for the Pacific Settlement 
of International Disputes. The Protocol is intended to supple¬ 
ment, not supersede, the Covenant of the league. Assert- 






Disarmament 


817 


ing that a war of aggression constitutes “an international 
crime,” it proceeds to define more exactly what is aggressive war 
and to state. more definitely the obligation of the signatory 
nations to coerce a nation that has begun such a war. Under 
the terms of the Protocol any nation refusing to accept arbitra¬ 
tion or to comply with an arbitral award becomes an aggressor. 
The other nations are then to bring pressure — economic, social, 
or military — to compel the aggressor to submit to arbitration. 
War, in short, is to be permitted henceforth only for the purpose 
of maintaining international peace. This Protocol was laid 
before the Council in December, 1924, for approval, modifica¬ 
tion, or rejection. 

222 . Disarmament 

All lovers of peace realize that the setting up of such agencies 
as the League of Nations and the “ World Court” must be accom¬ 
panied by partial or complete disarmament of the The Wash 
nations, if war is to be forever abolished from the ington 
civilized world. The United States became the Conference 
pioneer in this movement by organizing a Conference on the 
Limitation of Armament. In response to President Harding’s 
invitation, delegates of nine nations (the United States, Great 
Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Japan, and 
China) met at Washington in November, 1921, to deal with 
limitation of naval armament and, as connected therewith, the 
policy of the powers in the Far East. The conference continued 
in session until February, 1922. Its deliberations were so 
successful that the assembled powers agreed to a similar meeting 
eight years later, and also to frequent consultation, through 
commissions and other international bodies, on matters affecting 
their common interests. The chief results of the conference 
may be summarized as follows. 

The delegates adopted the proposal of Secretary Hughes for a 
limitation of navies. The five principal naval powers agreed to 
scrap or convert to peaceful uses sixty-eight Limitation 
capital ships, and so to limit future construction of navies 
that after a ten-year building holiday Great Britain and the 


8 i8 


The World To-day 


United States shall each have 525,000 tons, Japan 60 per cent 
of this tonnage, and France and Italy a still smaller per cent. 
The size of capital ships is also restricted, together with that 
of their guns. This agreement puts an end, at least for a 
decade, to much expensive and war-breeding competition in 
naval armaments. It further means that Great Britain sur¬ 
renders the mastery of the seas. She gives up maritime suprem¬ 
acy, not by compulsion, but voluntarily, in the interest of a 
new order now dawning on the world. 

The naval treaty contains an article by which the powers 
pledge themselves not to strengthen or enlarge the fortifica- 
Fortifications tions of their possessions in the Pacific. The 
“ status quo ” Hawaiian Islands and the Japanese Archipelago — 
Japan proper — do not fall within the provisions of this article. 

The five powers signing the naval treaty are also signatories 
to a treaty by which they agree not to use submarines as com- 
Submarines merce destroyers, in all cases to observe the ordi- 
and nary rules of visit and search of merchantmen, 

and to treat as a pirate any submarine commander 
who violates existing international law on the high seas. As 
between themselves, the five powers further outlaw the use of 
poison gas altogether. 

A very important outcome of the conference was the Four- 
Power Treaty, arranged between the United States, Japan, 
Four-Power Great Britain, and France. It replaces the Anglo- 
Treaty Japanese Alliance, which expired in 1921. The 

powers agree to respect one another’s rights relating to their in¬ 
sular possessions in the Pacific. Article II provides that if the 
said rights are threatened by the aggressive action of any other 
power, the signatories “shall communicate with one another 
fully and frankly, in order to arrive at an understanding as to 
the most efficient measures to be taken, jointly or severally, 
to meet the exigencies of the particular situation.” The period 
of the treaty is limited to ten years, but it will remain in force 
thereafter, subject to the right of any of the contracting parties 
to terminate it upon twelve months’ notice. The principal 
islands of Japan are not included within the scope of the treaty, 


Contemporary International Politics 819 

but it does apply to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, 
and the Hawaiian Islands. Taken in connection with the agree¬ 
ments respecting naval armaments and Pacific fortifications, the 
Four-Power Treaty should materially lessen the danger of future 
conflicts in the Far East. 

All the powers at the conference signed a Far Eastern Treaty, 
binding each one to respect the territorial integrity and sovereign 
rights of China in all future dealings with that Far Eastern 
country. Japan made a separate treaty with agreements 
China by which Shantung 1 was restored to Chinese control. 
Japan’s action was supplemented by the promise of Great 
Britain to give up Weihaiwei, 2 thus completing the restoration 
to China of her ancient province. These and other agreements 
were intended to end the exploitation of Chinese territory 
and resources for the benefit of outsiders. They signify, in 
short, the adoption by foreign nations of a policy of “China for 
the Chinese.” 

The Washington Conference did not secure any limitation of 
naval armament in the shape of cruisers and submarines, nor did 
it deal at all with the problem presented by the The Geneva 
huge land and air forces of the principal countries. Conference 
The Geneva Protocol attempts to meet this situation. It 
provides for an International Conference for the Reduction of 
Armaments, which is scheduled to meet at Geneva in June, 1925. 
All the states of the world, whether members of the League of 
Nations or not, will be invited to the conference. 

223. Contemporary International Politics 

One obvious outcome of the war and the peace settlement was 

a reduction in the number of the great imperialist powers of 

Europe. There were six in 1914, but only three in imperialist 

1024. Austria-Hungary no longer exists as a powers of 

, • 1 . Europe 

political entity. Germany, having lost navy, 

merchant marine, and all overseas possessions, does not at 

present rank as a factor in world politics. Russia has turned, 

at least temporarily, from the path of imperialism. On the other 

1 See page 769. 2 See page 557 and note 1. 


820 


The World To-day 


hand, Great Britain, France, and Italy all emerged from the war 
with additional foreign territories. Great Britain obtained the 
bulk of the German colonies and assumed the government of 
Palestine and Iraq (Mesopotamia). She confirmed her sover¬ 
eignty over the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, established a veiled 
protectorate over the new Arab state of Hejaz, and enlarged her 
sphere of influence in Persia and Afghanistan. France secured 
part of the German colonies in Africa, together with the former 
Turkish province of Syria, and now ranks next to Great Britain 
as an imperialist power. The gains of Italy abroad were less 
considerable, though she increased somewhat her three African 
colonies. 1 

The war gave Japan almost a free hand in the Far East, for 
her allies were busy elsewhere and China was vexed with internal 
japan as disorders. Japan used the opportunity thus pre- 

an imperialist sented to strengthen her position in southern 

Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. Both of these 
territories nominally belong to China. Korea, shortly before 
the war, had been annexed to the Japanese Empire under the 
name of Chosen. 2 Japan is now a continental power, with 
extensive and valuable holdings on the mainland of Asia. Her 
insular possessions have also been increased as the result of her 
mandate over the former German colonies north of the equator. 

The United States gained no new territory as a result of the 
war. Nevertheless, the war marked her coming of age as a 
Th u ‘t d wor ^ power. The Peace Conference incorporated 

States as an in th e Covenant of the League of Nations a state- 

imperialist ment that nothing in the Covenant should be 

deemed to affect the validity of “ regional under¬ 
standings like the Monroe Doctrine,” thus giving formal inter¬ 
national recognition of the doctrine. At the Washington 
Conference the United States likewise secured recognition of her 
special interests in the Pacific and the Far East, because of her 
possession of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines. It was 
during the war period that the United States purchased the 
Danish West Indies and set up protectorates over Nicaragua, 

1 See page 540. 2 See page 562 and note 1. 



821 






















































































































822 


The World To-day 


Haiti, and Santo Domingo. These developments, in connection 
with the earlier acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone and Porto 
Rico and the practical protectorate over Cuba, show clearly that 
the United States has become dominant in the Caribbean. 

The imperialistic policies of European nations have in recent 
times caused many wars. Leading instances are the South 
Imperialism African War (1899-1902), the Russo-Japanese 
and war War (1904-1905), and the Turko-Italian War 
(1911-1912). 1 These policies, if persisted in, may cause other 
wars. We delude ourselves if we suppose that all elements of 
anxiety have been eliminated from the international situation. 
There are still danger spots outside of Europe — in North Africa, 
where Spain, France, and Italy are rivals, in Egypt and the 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in Central Asia, and in China. Mean¬ 
while, the southward expansion of the United States continues 
to excite apprehension in Latin America. The United States 
is sometimes represented by Latin Americans as a giant nation 
destined to absorb during the next century whatever of Mexico, 
Central America, and the West Indies she has not taken within 
the last one hundred years. These and other problems presented 
by modern imperialism are not insoluble. They can be solved 
if only there is international comity and good will to do so, if, 
in the words of the late President Harding, the “ torches of 
understanding” can be made “to glow and encircle the globe.” 

The war and the peace treaties enabled the European map to be 
redrawn on the basis of national self-determination. Old states 
were reduced or enlarged, new states were formed, 
setf-determi- and oppressed or subject peoples received their 
nation in the freedom according to this principle. It could not 
be recognized in Europe without evoking demands 
for its recognition outside of Europe. The imperialist powers 
are now confronted with a nationalist movement in one depend¬ 
ency after another, among black and yellow races, as well as 
the white race, and among Moslems, Brahmanists, and Bud¬ 
dhists, as well as Christians. Great Britain, so far, has done most 
to comply with the demands of the nationalists. She ter- 

1 See pages 540, 542, and 562. 


Contemporary International Politics 823 

minated her protectorate over Egypt in 1922 and proclaimed that 
country a sovereign state. Iraq, which she supervises under a 
mandate, has been made a kingdom under an Arab ruler and 
with a liberal constitution. The Government of India Act, 
passed by the British Parliament in 1919, accords India repre¬ 
sentative institutions. It does not completely satisfy the 
extreme nationalists, led by Mahatma Gandhi and other agita¬ 
tors, who dream of complete Indian independence. The nation¬ 
alist movement is also penetrating into French Indo-China, into 
Korea, and into the Philippines. 

Radical socialism, or Bolshevism, has not only triumphed in 
Russia since the war, but has also spread widely in the Orient. 
The Soviet government started out by promising Bolshevism 
the former Asiatic subjects of Russia complete free- in the 
dom to set up states of their own. This liberal 0nent 
policy did not last long. It was soon modified by the require¬ 
ment that the new states accept Bolshevism and affiliate closely 
with the government at Moscow. The result is seen to-day in 
the existence throughout the Caucasus, Siberia, and Central 
Asia of a large number of sovietized provinces and so-called 
“ republics.’’ These are as much under Russian domination as 
they were in the days of the tsars. The Bolshevist propaganda 
of communism and atheism, which seeks to undermine the 
foundations of European civilization, also commends itself to 
the anti-European elements in such countries as Persia, Afghan¬ 
istan, Indiaj China, and the East Indies. Like the nationalist 
movement, with which it is often associated, Bolshevism 
promises to complicate the future relations of Occident and 
Orient. 

As far as European expansion has been truly an ethnic con¬ 
quest, it must be permanent. The intrusive whites in South 
Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the two Amer- Future of 
icas have either exterminated the aboriginal inhab- im P enalism 
itants or else have imposed on them their languages, laws, 
customs, and religion, together with (in Latin America) a con¬ 
siderable strain of their blood. European expansion in the 
tropical parts of Africa, Asia, and Oceania means merely political 


824 


The World To-day 


conquest, which has no necessary permanence. In the long 
run — how long a run no one can say — dependent countries 
not peopled by savage or barbarous tribes seem likely to secure 
home rule and, ultimately, complete freedom. The World War, 
which so effectively disposed of the colonial ambitions of both 
Germany and Russia, the establishment of the League of Na¬ 
tions, with its system of mandates for the government of the 
former German possessions and Turkish provinces, and the 
agreements between the great powers at the Washington Con¬ 
ference may result in a wiser and more considerate attitude on 
the part of imperialist states toward their dependencies. 

The relations between Europeans and non-Europeans seem 
likely to be influenced more and more by the factor of religion. 
The factor We sometimes forget that Christianity has as yet 
of religion ma de little impression on the civilized world outside 
of Europe and America. We do not always realize how numer¬ 
ous are the Moslems of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, the Brah- 
manists (or Hinduists) in India, and the Buddhists in China, 
Japan, and other Oriental countries: 1 

Religion, through its use by ambitious rulers or peoples, may 
assume political importance. Islam has always been feared in 
Pan- this respect, because Moslems are required to con- 

isiamism vert unbelievers by force, as well as by peaceful 

persuasion. It is a fanatical, aggressive religion, which gains 
every year millions of new followers, not only among the crowded 
populations of Asia, but also among the negroes of Central 
Africa. Both yellow men and black men respond to its teach¬ 
ings. Its power is persistent, for no people, once converted to 
Islam, has ever accepted another faith. The World War pro¬ 
duced an immense stirring among Moslems. Spain had trouble 
in Morocco, France in Syria, and Great Britain in Egypt and 
India, while all the European powers have been faced by a 
revived and truculent Turkey. There has even been a move¬ 
ment to unite all the Moslem world, at present divided into 
many hostile sects, through a program of political solidarity 
called Pan-Islamism. The movement has not gone far enough 

1 See page 669. 


Contemporary International Politics 825 

to make it likely that Christendom will have to meet some day 
another combined attack by the followers of the Prophet, such 
as Arabs and Turks launched in earlier centuries. Pan-Islam- 
ism is not a menace to the peace of the world, but the imperialist 
states will find it increasingly necessary to adjust their colonial 
policy to the wishes, and perhaps also the prejudices, of their 
Moslem subjects. 



The relations between Europeans and non-Europeans are 
further affected by the factor of color. Classified by races, the 
world’s population may be roughly estimated as The f actor 
800,000,000 for the Caucasian or White race; of color 
600,000,000 for the Mongolian or Yellow race; and 200,000,000 
for the Negro or Black race. While these figures are only 
approximate, they do show that the yellows and the blacks 
together equal and possibly outnumber the whites. 

The World War, in which both yellow men and black men 
participated, has heightened their racial consciousness. It has 
made them less ready than before to acquiesce in Racial 
the white man’s claim to superiority on the ground cons «ousness 
of color. Religious hatreds and Bolshevist propaganda have 
contributed to the same result, all along the great borderland of 





















826 


The World To-day 

the Occident and Orient from northern Africa to the interior of 
Asia and still farther east in China and Japan. 

Meanwhile, the assumed menace of the “Yellow Peril,” as it 
is called, has led to various restrictions upon the entrance of 
Exclusion Orientals into English-speaking countries. This 
acts attitude is defended on the general ground that 

yellow men do not readily assimilate with whites, and on the 



special ground that their lower standard of living enables them 
to displace whites in the labor market and thus reduces wages or 
creates unemployment. The United States excluded Chinese 
as early as 1882 and Japanese as recently as 1924. Legislation 
to limit or entirely prohibit Oriental immigration has also been 
adopted by Canada, the Union of South Africa, Australia, and 
New Zealand. In Latin America, where Chinese and Japanese 
















Contemporary International Politics 827 


are not numerous, the danger from the “Yellow Peril” has 
seemed too remote to produce a general exclusion movement. 
It may be noted that Japan herself excludes Chinese laborers, 
alleging that Chinese can live on less than Japanese and con¬ 
sequently can work for lower wages. 

Peaceful intercourse between the Orient and that Occident to 
which America belongs as much as Europe, depends more than 
ever before on racial concord. If the League of Nations or some 
similar organization is to be successful, white men, Racia j 
yellow men, and black men must cooperate in the concord 
task of making a better world. Not the popular refrain “East 
is East and West is West,” but the Golden Rule and the say¬ 
ing attributed to the Chinese Confucius, “ All men between the 
four seas are brothers,” express the true spirit of modern inter¬ 
nationalism. 

Studies 

1. Explain: Pan-American Union, Holy Alliance, Concert of Europe, Hague 
Tribunal, Covenant of the League of Nations, “World Court,” and Geneva Protocol. 
2. Mention four leading causes of European wars during the last century. What 
other causes might be mentioned? 3. Trace the attitude of official Christianity 
toward war from the first Christian centuries to the present time. 4. What did 
Lord Bryce mean by saying, “If we do not destroy war, war will destroy us”? 
5. What were some of the historical antecedents of the League of Nations? 6. Ex¬ 
plain the present organization and functions of the league. 7. Why did not the 
United States join the league? What other important countries are non-members? 
8. How does the Covenant of the league attempt to prevent war between league 
members? 9. What do you understand by international law? How does it differ 
from ordinary law? 10. Compare the abolition of private warfare toward the 
close of the Middle Ages with recent movements to abolish public warfare. 11. How 
far did the Washington Conference limit armaments? 12. Name the five great 
imperialist powers of to-day. 13. Discuss briefly some of the problems of con¬ 
temporary imperialism. 14. How have Oriental countries been affected by nation¬ 
alist movements and Bolshevist agitation? 15. Comment on the significance in 
contemporary international politics of the factor of religion and the color factor. 










. 

. 

- 

’ 

. 
















' 

.. 









TABLE OF EVENTS AND DATES 


B. C. 

776 First recorded celebration of the Olympian games. Greek chronology 
begins to be precise from this date. 

753 (?) Rome founded. Traditional date. 

606 Destruction of Nineveh. End of the Assyrian Empire, which had long 
dominated the Near East. 

586-539 Captivity of the Hebrews in Babylonia. 

568 (?)-488 (?) Gautama Buddha. 

551 (?)-478 Confucius. 

509 (?) Roman Republic established. Traditional date. 

490 Marathon, 480 Salamis, and 479 Plataea and Mycale. The four battles 

which preserved Greece from Persian domination and European 
culture from submergence in that of Asia. 

451-450 Laws of the Twelve Tables published. The basis of all later 
Roman law. 

390 (?) Rome captured by the Gauls. 

338 Battle of Chaeronea. The triumph of the Macedonian Kingdom over 
the disunited city-states of Greece. 

333 Issus and 331 Arbela. The two battles which overthrew the Persian 
Empire and established Macedonian supremacy throughout the 
Near East. 

214 Great Wall of China begun. 

202 Battle of Zama. Ended the Second Punic War and left Rome without 
a rival in the western Mediterranean. 

146 Carthage and Corinth destroyed by the Romans. 

58-50 Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. Opened up much of western 
Europe to Graeco-Roman civilization. 

31 Battle of Actium. Ended civil war between Antony and Octavian, leav¬ 
ing the latter supreme in the Roman state. 

4 (?) Birth of Christ. 

70 A. D. Jerusalem captured and destroyed by the Romans. 

829 


830 


Table of Events and Dates 


13s Dispersion of the Jews. 

212 Edict of Caracalla. Extended Roman citizenship to all free-born men 
in the Roman Empire. 

284 Reorganization of the Roman Empire by Diocletian. The imperial 
system henceforth became an undisguised absolutism of the Oriental 
type. 

313 Edict of Milan. Granted general religious toleration and placed 
Christianity on a legal equality with the other religions of the 
Roman world. 

325 Council of Nicsea. Framed the Nicene Creed, which is still the ac¬ 
cepted summary of Christian doctrine in Roman Catholic, Greek, 
and most Protestant churches. 

330 Constantinople (New Rome) made the capital of the Roman Empire. 

451 Battle of Chalons. Saved western Europe from being conquered by the 
still barbarous Huns. 

476 Deposition of Romulus Augustulus. Extinction of the line of Roman 
emperors in the West. 

496 Clovis adopted Catholic Christianity. Paved the way for intimate 
relations between the Franks and the Papacy. 

529 (?) Rule of St. Benedict. Established the form of monasticism which 
ultimately prevailed everywhere in western Europe. 

529-534 Codification of Roman law. The Corpus Juris Civilis formed per¬ 
haps the most important contribution of Rome to civilization. 

622 The Hegira (Flight) of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. Marks 
the beginning of the Mohammedan era. 

732 Battle of Tours. The victory of the Franks under Charles Martel 
stemmed the farther advance of the Moslems into western Europe. 

800 Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the Romans. Formation of the so- 
called Holy Roman Empire. 

843 Treaty of Verdun and 870 Treaty of Mersen. Marked important 
stages in the dissolution of Charlemagne’s dominions. 

962 Otto I, the Great, crowned Roman Emperor. Revival of the so- 
called Holy Roman Empire. 

982 Greenland discovered by the Northmen. 

988 Christianity introduced into Russia. The Russian Slavs henceforth 
came under the influence of the Greek Church and Byzantine civ¬ 
ilization. 


Table of Events and Dates 831 

1054 Final rupture of the Greek and Roman Churches. Destroyed the 
religious unity of European Christendom. 

1066 Battle of Hastings. Resulted in the Norman Conquest of England. 

1095 Council of Clermont. Beginning of the crusades. 

1122 Concordat of Worms. A compromise arrangement between the 
Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. 

1206-1227 Conquests of Jenghiz Khan. Brought a large part of Asia 
and eastern Europe under Mongol sway. 

1215 Magna Carta. Defined the rights of Englishmen and inspired their 
later struggles for political liberty. 

1271-1295 Travels of Marco Polo. Polo’s narrative of his travels greatly 
increased the interest of Europeans in the Far East. 

1275 “Model Parliament” of Edward I. A regularly elected Parliament 
which for the first time included representatives of all classes of 
the English people. 

1309-1377 “Babylonian Captivity” of the Papacy. The removal of the 
popes to Avignon weakened their political authority. 

1348-1349 Black Death in Europe. Hastened the decline of serfdom and the 
emancipation of the peasantry. 

1378-1417 The “Great Schism.” Weakened the spiritual supremacy of the 
popes over western Christendom. 

1396 Greek first taught at Florence, Italy. The revival of Greek studies in 
western Europe formed an important aspect of the Renaissance 
movement. 

1453 Constantinople captured by the Ottoman Turks. End of the Byzan¬ 
tine Empire and beginning of the Eastern Question. 

1456 First book printed at Gutenberg’s press in Mainz, Germany. 

1487 Cape of Good Hope rounded by Diaz. The final step in the Portuguese 
exploration of the western coast of Africa. 

1492 Discovery of America by Columbus. 

1498 India reached by Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese thus opened up 
an ocean passage from Europe round Africa to the Far East. 

1517 Luther’s Ninety-five Theses posted. Beginning of the Protestant 
Reformation in Germany. 

1519-1522 Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. 


832 


Table of Events and Dates 


1543 Publication of Copernicus’s treatise “On the Revolutions of Celestial 
Orbits.” Resulted in the adoption of an entirely new system of 
astronomy, by which man’s outlook on the universe has been 
fundamentally changed. 

1545 Silver Mines of Potosf in Bolivia discovered. The enormous output 
of silver from these mines greatly enlarged the supply of money 
in western Europe, thus stimulating industrial and commercial 
enterprise. 

1545-1563 Council of Trent. An important agency in the Catholic Counter 
Reformation. 

1577-1580 Drake’s voyage around the world. 

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Gave to England control of the sea 
and made possible English colonization of North America. 

1598 Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV of France. A noteworthy step 
in the direction of religious toleration. 

1607 Settlement of Jamestown. The first permanent English colony in 
America. 

1611 Authorized Version of the Bible published. The translation still in 
ordinary use among Protestants throughout the English-speaking 
world. 

1648 Peace of Westphalia. Ended the religious wars. 

1687 Newton’s “Principia” published. One of the most important contri¬ 
butions ever made to physical science. 

1688-1689 The “Glorious Revolution.” Completed the work of the Puritan 
Revolution by overthrowing absolutism and divine right in Eng¬ 
land. 

1704 Battle of Blenheim. Defeated the attempt of Louis XIV to make 
France supreme in western Europe. 

1762 Rousseau’s “Social Contract” published. Its democratic teachings 

were put into effect by the French revolutionists. 

1763 Peace of Paris. Ended the Seven Years’ War and gave to England 

a colonial empire in India and North America at the expense of 
France. 

1768-1779 Voyages of Captain James Cook. Greatly increased geographi¬ 
cal knowledge of the Pacific Ocean and its archipelagoes. 

1769 Arkwright’s “water frame,” 1770 Hargreaves’s “spinning jenny,” 
1779 Crompton’s “mule,” and 1785 Cartwright’s power loom. 


Table of Events and Dates 833 


1781-1782 Watt’s steam engine patented. The steam engine had previously 
served only for pumping; henceforth it could be applied to manu¬ 
facturing and transportation. 

■ 

1776 Declaration of Independence. 

1783 Peace of Paris and Versailles. Ended the War of the American Revo¬ 
lution. 

1787 Constitution of the United States framed. 

1789 Meeting of the Estates-General in France. The first step toward 
the French Revolution. 

1803 Louisiana Purchase. Made possible a greater United States. 

1804 The Code Napoleon promulgated. The most lasting memorial 

of the Napoleonic era. 

1807 Fulton’s steamboat, the “Clermont,” in successful operation. 

1814-1815 Congress of Vienna. Remade the map of Europe after the 
revolutionary and Napoleonic era. 

1815 Battle of Waterloo. Brought about the fi.xal overthrow of Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

1823 Monroe Doctrine enunciated. Has prevented European interference 
in the affairs of the New World. 

1825 Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. The first line over which 

passengers and freight were carried by steam power. 

1826 Independence of the Spanish-American colonies recognized by Spain. 

1830-1831 The “July Revolution” in Europe. Overthrew absolutism and 
divine right in France and created modern Belgium. 

1832 Reform Act in Great Britain. The first step in democratizing the 

British government. 

1833 Abolition by Great Britain of slavery in the British West Indies. 

1837 Morse’s first telegraph instrument exhibited. 

1838 The Atlantic Ocean crossed by the “Great Western.” The first 

steamship to make the trip without using sails or recoaling on the 
way. 

1839 Lord Durham’s Report. Embodied liberal proposals for colonial self- 

government, which were subsequently adopted by Great Britain 
for Canada and other overseas possessions. 

1848-1849 The “February Revolution” in Europe. Made France again a 
republic and led to revolutionary upheavals in Italy, Germany and 
the Austrian Empire. 


Table of Events and Dates 


834 

1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition at London. The first of the great inter¬ 
national expositions. 

1854 Treaty between Japan and the United States. The first step in break¬ 
ing down Japan’s traditional isolation. 

1858-1861 Russian serfdom abolished by Alexander II. 

1859 Darwin’s “Origin of Species” published. Presentation of the 
evolutionary theory. 

1863 Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. 

1864 International Red Cross Society founded. Has become the greatest 

humanitarian organization in the world. 

1866 Atlantic Cable laid. The first of the many cables which now elec¬ 
trically bridge all the oceans. 

1869 Suez Canal opened. 

1870 Rome occupied by Italian troops. Unification of Italy completed. 

1871 German Empire proclaimed at Versailles. 

1874 International Postal Union established. An important agency in 

internationalization. 

1875 First telephone patented by A. G. Bell. 

1899 Meeting of the First Hague Peace Conference. 

1900 Trans-Siberian Railway completed from Petrograd to Vladivostok. 

1903 S. P. Langley’s airplane and 1908 Wright Brothers’ airplane. 

1909 North Pole reached by Robert E. Peary and 1911 South Pole reached 
by R. Amundsen. 

19x2 China becomes a republic. 

19x4 Panama Canal opened. 

X9X4-X918 World War. 

1917 The Russian Revolution and establishment of Bolshevism in Russia. 

1919 Peace Conference at Versailles. 

1920 First meeting of the League of Nations. 

1921 Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament. 

1922 “ World Court” organized. 


INDEX AND PRONOUNCING 
VOCABULARY 


Note. —The pronunciation of most proper names is indicated either by a simplified 
spelling or by their accentuation and division into syllables. The diacritical marks em¬ 
ployed are those found in Webster’s New International Dictionary and are the following: 


a as in ale. 

o as in old. 

oi as in oil. 

a “ “ sen&te. 

6 “ “ obey. 

ch “ “ chair. 

a “ “ care. 

6 “ “ Orb. 

g “ “ go. 

a “ “ am. 

6 “ “ odd. 

ng “ “ sing. 

a “ “ account. 

o “ “ soft. 

q “ “ iqk. 

a u “ arm. 

o “ “ connect. 

Ui “ “ then. 

a “ “ ask. 

u “ “ use. 

th “ “ thin. 

d “ “ sofa. 

il “ “ unite. 

tu “ “ nature. 

e “ “ eve. 

u “ “ urn. 

du“ “ verdure. 

$ “ “ £vent. 

u “ “ up. 

for ch as in Ger. ich, ach. 

e “ “ 6nd. 

u “ “ circws. 

n as in Fr. bon. 

e “ “ recent. 

ii “ “ menu. 

y “ “ yet. 

e “ “ maker. 

oo as in food. 

zh for z as in azure. 

i “ “ Ice. 

do “ “ foot. 


i “ “ ill. 

ou “ “ out. 



Abdul-Hamid (ab-dool-ha-med'), 
II, 529, 710 and note 1. 

Absolutism, royal, 105, 106, 151, 
152, 154, 155, 158, 160, 164, 168, 
182, 183, 200, 211, 277, 292, 
316, 353, 648. See also Divine 
right of kings. 

Abukir (a-boo-ker') Bay, battle of, 
325. 

Abyssinia (&b-l-sln'l-d), 470, 534, 
536, 540. 

Academy, French, the, 192, 455. 

Adowa (a/do-wa), battle of, 470. 

ACgean (e-je'&n) Sea, 30. 

vEgeans, the, 31, 32. 

Af-ghan-i-stan', 548, 550, 707, 820. 

Africa, Portuguese exploration of, 
125, 126; physical and racial, 
535, 536; opening-up of, 536, 
537; Christian missions in, 538; 
partition of, among European 
powers, 538-545, 769. 


Africa, North, conquered by Otto¬ 
man Turks, 206; Italian and 
French possessions in, 540, 541, 
820. 

Africa, South, Boers and English 
in, 229, 230, 541, 542; Union of, 
542, 543. 

“Agadir (ag-a-der') incident,” the, 
709. 

Agriculture, medieval, 86 - 88 ; 
modern, 176, 250, 4$9, 629, 631. 

Aguinaldo (a-ge-nal'do), 564. 

Airplane, the, 609, 610. 

Airship, the, 610, 611. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 214, 234. 

Alabama claims, the, 808. 

Aland Islands, 781, 813. 

Alaska, 273, 582, 583. 

Al-ba'ni-a, 530, 531, 712, 713, 739, 
741, 779. 

Albanians, the, 516, 517. 

Albany Congress, the, 255. 


835 




836 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Albert I, king of Belgium, 476, 727. 

Alexander I, king of Jugoslavia, 
778. 

Alexander I, tsar of Russia, 338, 
343, 344, 352, 375, 504, 506, 
806; II, 412, 508-510, 633; 
III, 511-513, 527. 

Alexander the Great, 16, 41. 

Alexandria, 43, 45, 55. 

Alfonso XII, king of Spain, 471; 
XIII, 471, note 3. 

Algeciras (Span. pron. al-ha-the'- 
ras) Conference, the, 707, 807. 

Algeria, 463, 464, 540, 709. 

Alma, battle of the, 525. 

Alphabet, the, 20, 21, 32, 47. 

Alps Mountains, 26, 27, 394. 

Alsace (al-sas'), 150, 185, 186, 349, 
415, 416, 701, 703, 741, 761, 
768. See also Lorraine. 

America, Northmen in, 75; dis¬ 
covery of, 128; Europe and, 
133-135. 

America, Central, republics of, 578. 

America, North, the Dutch in, 230, 
231; English settlement of Vir¬ 
ginia and Massachusetts, 235- 
242; the Thirteen Colonies, 
242-255; French settlements 
in, 256-259; rivalry of France 
and England in, 259-262; re¬ 
volt of the Thirteen Colonies, 
263-270; formation of the 
United States, 270-272; Brit¬ 
ish, 585-588. 

America, South, Spain in, 572, 573; 
revolt of the Spanish and Portu¬ 
guese colonies in, 573, 574; the 
South American republics, 574- 
577. 

American Federation of Labor, 
the, 588, 636. 

American Revolution, the, 263- 
270. 

Amiens (a-my&N'), Peace of, 331, 
336. 

Amundsen (a'mun-sSn), Captain 
Roald, 589, note 1, 590. 

Amur (a/moor) Valley, 547, 557. 


Anabaptists, the, 804. 

Anglicanism, 139, 140, 142, 152, 
156, 159, 164, 169, 247, 283, 667. 

Anglo-Russian Convention, the, 
548, 550, 706. 

Anglo-Saxons, the, 66, 67. 

Angora, 775. 

Anne, Queen, 171, 172, 173, 174, 
187, 221, 432. 

Antarctic exploration, 589, 591. 

Anthony, Susan B., 661, 662. 

Anti-Corn-Law League, the, 626. 

Anti-Saloon League, the, 658. 

Arabs, the, 69, 70, 742, 777. 

Arbitration, international, 808, 
812, 813. 

Architecture, 19, 38, 39, 56, 107, 
117, 118, 177, 191, 192, 680. 

Arctic exploration, 589. 

Argentina, 576, 577, 750. 

Aristotle (Sr'Is-toPl), 40, 120. 

Arkwright, Richard, 596. 

Armada (ar-m'add), the Spanish, 
146, 147. 

Armenia, 777, 778, 786. 

Armies, modern, 714. 

Armistice with Germany, terms of 
the, 760, 761. 

Art, Oriental, 19, 21; Greek, 38; 
Roman, 56; medieval, 107; 
Renaissance, 117, 118; modern, 
177, 191, 192, 679-681. See also 
Architecture, Painting, Sculp¬ 
ture. 

Articles of Confederation, the, 271, 
272. 

Artois (ar-twa/), province, 185. 

Ar'yans, the, 10, note 1, 15, 16. 

Asia, geography and peoples of, 
10 -12; the Far East in antiq¬ 
uity, 12-16; the Near East in 
antiquity, 17-23; the Polos in, 
123, 124; opening up and parti¬ 
tion of, 547-563. 

Asia Minor, 711, 775. 

Asquith, H. H., 441, 728. 

Assignats (a-se-nya'), the, 310, 
311. 

Assuan (as-swan') Dam, the, 544. 



Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 837 


As-syr'i-a, 18. 

Astronomy, modern, 119, 671. 

Athens, 35-41. 

Augsburg (ouks'boorK), Peace of, 
144, 148, 666. 

Au-gus'tus, Roman Emperor, 52, 
65. 

Ausgleich (ous'gliK), the Austro- 
Hungarian, 494, 495, 498. 

Austerlitz (ous'ter-llts), battle of, 
337, 338, 339, 391. 

Australasia, 566. 

Australia, exploration of, 273; 
colonization of, 566; in the 
British Empire, 567; labor 
legislation in, 639, 640. 

Austria, rise and growth of, 207; 
under Maria Theresa, 208, 209, 
213, 214; shares in the parti¬ 
tions of Poland, 220; under 
Joseph II, 293, 294; wars of, 
with France, during the revolu¬ 
tionary and Napoleonic era, 316, 
317, 319, 323, 324, 325, 331, 
337, 343, 346, 347; territorial 
acquisitions of, by the Vienna 
settlement, 356; predominance 
of, in Germany and Italy, 358; 
in the Concert of Europe, 361- 
365; revolutionary movements 
of 1848 in, 380-384; loss of 
Lombardy and Venetia by, 401, 
404; eliminated from the Ger¬ 
manic Confederation, 411-413; 
relations of, with Hungary, 493- 
495; becomes a republic, 760, 
773, 774; the St.-Germain 

Treaty with, 772. See also 
Austria-Hungary. 

Austria-Hungary, government of, 
494, 495; nationalities in, 496- 
499; between 1871 and 1914, 
701, 702, 703, 711, 713; in the 
World War, 721-724, 729, 738, 
739, 741, 760. 

Austrian Netherlands, 187, 194, 
219, 324, 356. See also Belgium. 

Austrian Succession, War of the, 
213, 214, 234. 


Austro-Prussian War, the 404, 
412, 413, 701. 

Austro-Sardinian War, the, 400, 
401. 

Azerbaijan (a-zer-bi-jan'), 786. 

Azores (d-zorz'), the, 125, 474. 

Baber (ba'ber), 233. 

Bab-y-lo'ni-a, in antiquity, 17-23. 

Bacon, Francis, 177, 532. 

Baden (ba'dSn), 339, 361, 385. 

Bagdad (bag-dad'), 711, 742. 

Ba-la-kla'va, battle of, 525. 

Balance of power, the, in Europe, 
186, 195, 214, 336, 358, 700, 707. 

“ Balance of trade/’ the, 227. 

Balkan Peninsula, the, 516. 

Balkan wars (1912-1913), the, 530, 
531, 713, 723. 

Ballot Act, the, 429. 

Baltic Sea, 202. 

Banking, 101, 232, 354, 621, 622, 
693. 

Baptists, the, 169, 247, 283, 669. 

Basel (ba'zSl), Treaty of, 321. 

Bastille (bas-tel'), the, capture of, 
305, 422. 

Batavian Republic, the, 321, 339. 

Bavaria, 213, 331, 339, 357, 361. 

Bazaine (ba-zgn'), General, 414. 

Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli, 
Benjamin. 

Beauharnais (bo-ar-ne'), Eugene 
de, 339 and note 1. 

Bec-ca-ri'a, Marquis di, 656. 

Beethoven (ba'to-ven), Ludwig 
van, 679. 

Belgian Congo, the, 478, 540. 

Belgium, becomes an independent 
and neutral state, 374; govern¬ 
ment of, 476-478; colonial pos¬ 
sessions of, 476, 539, 540; in 
the World War, 726, 727, 728, 
729, 731, 734, 741; acquires 
German territory, 769. 

Bel-grade', 712, 770. 

Bell, Alexander G., 612, 613. 

Benedict XV, pope, 469, 753. 

Benedictine Rule, the, 83, 84. 



Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


838 

Bengal (b8n-g61')> 235. 

Ber'bers, the, 463. 

Berchtold, Count, 723, 724. 

Bering, Vitus, 274, 298. 

Berlin, 191. 

Berlin Decree, the, 340; Treaty, 
526, 701, 712. 

Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway, the, 

710, 711. 

Bernadotte (b6r-na-dot'), Marshal, 
480. 

Bessarabia, 356, 501, 527, 738, 
note 1, 784. 

Bethmann-Hollweg, (bat'man-hol'- 
vaK), Theobald von, 726, 727, 
728, 746. 

Bible, the, 21, 22, 62, 140, 142. 
Bicameral system, the, 253, 254, 
271. 

BUI of Rights, the, 171, 172, 221, 
312. 

Bimetallism, 623. 

Bismarck, Otto von, 410-417, 488, 
490, 491, 492, 639, 647, 700, 701, 
702, 704, 705, 707, 709. 

“ Black Hole” of Calcutta, the, 234. 
Black Sea, 197, 201, 206, 525, 628, 

711. 

Blanc (blaN), Louis, 645. 

Blenheim (blSn'Im), battle of, 187. 
Bliicher (blii'Ker), 347. 

Boers (boors), the, colonize South 
Africa, 230, 541; at war with 
Great Britain, 542; in the 
World War, 543, 741. 

Bohemia, national movements in, 
381, 497, 779. 

Boleyn (bool'In), Anne, 139, 140. 
Bolivar (Span. pron. bo-le'var), 
Sim6n de, 573, 574. 
Bol-she-vi-ki', the, in Russia, 752 
and note 1, 753, 784-788. 
Bolshevist propaganda, 785, 786, 
823. 

Book of Common Prayer , the, 140, 
164, 169. 

Booth, William, 659. 

Bor-o-di'no, battle of, 344. 

Borussi, the, 209, 210, 503. 


Bosnia, 517, 528, 701, 712, 721. 

“Boston Tea Party,” the, 266. 

Botha (bo'ta), Louis, 543. 

Boulanger (boo-laN-zha/), General, 
459. 

Bourbons (boor'biins), the, Span¬ 
ish, 186, 187, 354; French, 347, 
353, 354, 369, 371 and note 1. 

Bourgeoisie (bobr-zhwa-ze')> the, 
94, 280 and note 1, 296, 300, 315, 
318, 321, 359, 370, 378, 388, 645, 

. 646, 751, 752, 786. 

“Boxers,” the, 557, 558, 708, 718, 
807. 

Boyne, battle of the, 438, 442. 

Braganza (bra-gan'za) dynasty, 
the, 473. 

Brahmanism, 16, 553, 669. 

Brandenburg (bran'den-bborK), 
150, 189, 209, 210, 211, 214, 491. 
See also Prussia. 

Brazil, 131, 342, 363, 473, 574, 750. 

Brest-Litovsk (brSst'lye-tof sk'), 

Treaty of, 753, 756, 784. 

Bright, John, 626. 

British East Africa, 543. 

British Empire, the, 443-451, 532, 
541-545, 550-554, 566, 567, 581, 
585-588. 

British Guiana, 583, 808. 

British Isles, unification of, 102. 

British West Indies, 581, 655. 

Brusilov, General, 736, 739. 

Brussels, 347, 373, 729. 

Buddha (bbod'd), Gautama, 16. 

Buddhism (bobd'fz’m), 16, 553, 
554, 556, 560^669. 

Bukharest (boo-kd-r6st'), Treaty 
of (1913), 530, 531, 713. 

Bukowina (boo-ko-ve'-na), 527, 
736, 772. 

Bulgaria, rise of, 528, 529; in the 
Balkan wars, 530, 713; in the 
World War, 736, 738, 759; 
Treaty of Neuilly with, 774. 

Bulgarians, the, 517. 

Bundesrat (boon'dSs-rat), the, 484, 
485, 486, 783. 

Bunyan, John, 178. 



Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Burke, Edmund, 265, 422. 

Burma, 550, 552, 554, 556. 

Cabinet system, the, 221, 272, 
367, 368, 435, 436, 791. 

Cabot, John, 133, 235. 

Caesar (se'zdr), Julius, 51, 52. 

Cahiers (ka-ya'), the, 301, 302. 

Calais (Fr. pron, ka-18'), 612, 731. 

California, 582, 623. 

Calmar, Union of, 202, 479, 480. 

Calverts, the, 242, 243. 

Calvin, 138, 139, 147. 

Calvinism, 139, 142, 145, 148, 
150, 152. 

Cameroons, the, 540, 741, 769. 

Campo Formio, Treaty of, 324, 
331, 338, 405. 

Canada, French explorations in, 
133, 256; Jesuit missions in, 
256, 257; conquered by Eng¬ 
land, 260-262; the “Tories” 
settle in, 267, 585; Upper and 
Lower, 585; in the War of 1812- 
1814, 586; receives self-govern¬ 
ment, 586, 587; Dominion of, 
587, 588. 

Canals, 445, 446, 447, 581, 584, 
585, 606, 628. 

Canning, George, 364. 

Cape Colony, 355, 541, 542. 

Capetian (ka-pe'shan), dynasty, 
the, 681. 

Cape-to-Cairo Railway, the, 545, 
546. 

Car-a-cal'la, Roman emperor, 52. 

Car-bo-na'ri, the, 396, 397, 521. 

Carlsbad Decrees, the, 360, 361. 

Carnegie (kar-nSg'i), Andrew, 665, 
804. 

Carolinas, the, 243, 247, 248, 250. 

Carnot (kar-no'), Lazare, 321, 323. 

Car-o-lin'gi-an dynasty, the, 681. 

Carthage, 51. 

Cartier, Jacques (kar-tya', zhak'), 
133, 256. 

Cartwright, Edmund, 598. 

Castes, Hindu, 16, 553. 

Castles, medieval, 78. 


839 

Catherine II, tsarina of Russia, 
205, 206, 207, 219, 220, 292. 

Catholic Church. See Greek 
Church, Roman Church. 

Caucasian race, the, 8, 9, 568, 825. 

“Cavaliers,” the, 162 and note 1, 
170. 

Cavour (ka-voor'), Camillo di, 398- 
404, 417, 469, 524. 

Celts, the, 437, 438. 

Censorship of the press, in Great 
Britain, 158, 173, 284; in 

France, 298, 325; in Spain, 354; 
in Germany, 361; in Russia, 
507, 508, 513. 

Ceylon, 229, 355, 554. 

Chambord (shaN-bor'), Count of, 
458. 

Champlain (sham-plan'), Samuel 
de, 256. 

Charlemagne (shar'le-man), 70, 72, 
75, 76, 334, 335, 339, 681. 

Charles I, emperor of Austria, 
496, 760, 774. 

Charles I, king of England, 156- 
164, 240, 241, 242; II, 168-170, 
241, 243, 245, 353, 691. 

Charles I, king of Rumania, 526, 
712. 

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 
129, 137, 140, 144, 145; VI, 
208. 

Charles X, king of France, 369, 
370, 378. 

Charles XII, king of Sweden, 203, 
204. 

Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, 
383, 384, 466. 

Charters, colonial, 235, 237, 240, 
241, 242, 243. 

Chartism, 426, 427. 

Chatham (chat'am), Earl of. See 
William Pitt. 

Chateau-Thierry (sha-to'-tyS-re'), 
757, 758. 

Chemistry, modern, 176, 671, 673. 

Chile, 576, 577, 750. 

China, history of, in antiquity, 
12-14; visited by the Polos, 123, 



840 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


124; geography and people of, 
555; civilization of, 555, 556; 
during the nineteenth and twen¬ 
tieth centuries, 556-559, 719, 
819, 820. 

Chino-Japanese War, the, 557, 561. 

Chosen. See Korea. 

Christianity, rise and triumph of, 
60-63; influence of, 63, 64 ; 
adoption of by the Germans, 67. 
See also Greek Church, Orthodox 
Church, Protestants, Roman 
Church. 

Church and State, relations of, 
283, 284, 310, 313, 314, 332, 666, 
667. 

Cisalpine Republic, the, 324, 339. 

Cities, Greek, 33; Hellenistic, 42, 
43; Roman, 55, 56; medieval, 
91-101; modern, 616. 

City-states, Greek, 33-35, 37, 41. 

Civilization, dawn of, 5—8; in the 
Far East, 12-16; in the Near 
East, 17-23; Aegean, 31; Greek, 
32 ; Etruscan, 46, 47; Athenian, 
35-41; Hellenistic, 43-46; Ro¬ 
man, 56, 57; medieval, 106- 
113; modern, 652-669. 

Civil War, American, 427. 

Clemenceau (kla-maN-so'), Geor¬ 
ges, 756, 764. 

Clive, Robert, 234, 550. 

Coalitions against France: First, 
319, 320, 321; Second, 325, 331; 
Third, 327, 328. 

Cobden, Richard, 626. 

Code Napoleon , the, 331, 332, 351, 
354, 396, 662. 

Colbert (kol-b&r'), 189, 190, 191, 
257. 

Colombia, 574, 576, 585. 

Colonial policy, Portuguese, 130; 
Spanish, 131; British, 263, 264, 
270, 448. 

Colonies and dependencies, Portu¬ 
guese, 130, 131, 474 and note 1, 
538, 574; Spanish, 131, 133, 
342, 364, 472, 473 and note 1, 
538, 563, 564, 572-574; Dutch, 


228-231, 245, 355, 478, 479, 565, 
581; French, 233-235, 256-258, 
260-262, 463, 464 and note 1, 
540, 541, 550, 566, 581, 709, 769, 
776; British, 233-246, 260- 

270, 355, 443-451, 532, 541-545, 
550-554, 566, 567, 581, 585-588, 
708, 740, 769, 776, 777; Italian, 
470, 540; Belgian, 478, 539, 540; 
Danish, 480, 481, 581; German, 
492, 493 and note 1, 540, 543, 
566, 741, 742, 769; American, 
564, 565, 566, 581, 582, 820. 

Colonization, motives for, 226, 
534, 535, 572. 

Columbus, 127-129, 580. 

Combination Acts, the, 634, 635. 

Commerce, 98, 123-125, 133-135, 
226-228, 619-621. 

Common Law, the, 106, 253, 
431, 634. 

Commons, House of, 162, 164, 165, 
166, 173, 223, 224, 253, 368, 
422-425, 432, 433, 435. 

Commonwealth, the, in England, 
165-167. 

"Communards,” the, 457, 683. 

Commune of Paris, the, 306, 457. 

Communism. See Socialism. 

Companies, trading, 227, 228, 229, 
230, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 245, 
447. 

Compass, mariner’s, 122, 123. 

Concert of Europe, the, 361-365, 
470, 476, 807. 

Concordat, French, 232 and note 1, 
354, 460, 667. 

Confucius (kon-fu'shl-ws), 14, 556, 
560, 685. 

Congo Free State, 478, 540, 807. 

Congo River, 538. 

Congregationalism, 164, note 1, 
169, 247. 

Conscription, military, develop¬ 
ment of, 320, 321, 345, 409, 714, 
796. 

Conservative Party, British, 426, 
428, 429, 437 and note 1, 440, 
441, 449. 



Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 841 


Constantine (kSn'st&n-tln) the 
Great, 57, note 1, 63, 65. 

Constantine I, king of Greece, 
522, note 2, 712, 738, 739. 

Constantinople, 57 and note 1, 
69, 115, 206, 338, 524, 526, 
738, 759, 775. 

Consulate, Napoleon’s, 329-334. 

Continental Congress, the, 266, 
270. 

Continental System, Napoleon’s, 
340, 341, 342, 344, 585. 

Cook, Captain James, 273, 274, 
565, 566, 591. 

Co-per'ni-cus, 119. 

Corn Laws, the, repeal of, 626, 627. 

Cor 'pus Ju'ris Ci-vi'lis , the, 54, 
and note 1. 

Corvee (kor-va/), the, 281, 300. 

Cossacks, the, 197 and note 2, 198, 
204, 345. 

Costume, old Russian, 199; in 
eighteenth-century France, 301; 
modern, 652. 

Cotton, manufactures of, 597, 598, 
604. 

Counter Reformation, the, 142- 
144.- 

Coup d’etat (koo-da-ta'), Napoleon 
Bonaparte’s, 326; Louis Na¬ 
poleon’s, 391. 

Courland, 503, 741, 753, 781. 

Craft guilds, 95, 96, 176, 280, 281, 
283, 300, 601, 602, 634. 

Cranmer, Archbishop, 140. 

Crete, 18, 30, 31. 

Crimean War, the, 394, 399, 524, 
525. 

Criminal code, the, reform of, 655- 
657. 

Crises, commercial, 624, 625. 

Crispi, Francesco, 470. 

Croatia-Slavonia, 494, 497, 778. 

Crompton, Samuel, 597. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 160, 162—168. 

Crown colonies, British, 447. 

Crusades, the, 123. 

Cuba, 472, 581. 

Curasao (koo-ra-so'), 231, 581. 


Curie (kii-re'), Marie, 673. 

Custozza (kos-tod'za), battle of, 
383. 

Czechs (chSks), the, 381, 497, 779. 

Czecho-Slovakia, 772, 774, 779, 
780. 

Da Gama, Vasco, 126, 127, 130. 

Daimios (dl'myoz), Japanese, 560, 
561. 

Dalmatia, 497, 740, 778. 

Danish West Indies, 481, 581, 820. 

Dante (dan'ta), 115. 

Danton (daN-toN'), Georges Jac¬ 
ques, 315, 317, 319, 320, 322. 

Danzig (dan'tslK), 769, 779, 811. 

Dar-da-nelles', the, 207, 596, 775. 

Davy, Sir Humphry, 600. 

“DawesPlan,” the, 770, 771. 

De4k (da'ak), Francis, 494. 

Decembrist uprising, the, in 
Russia, 506, 507, 508. 

Declaration of Independence, the, 
266, 267, 270, 288. 

Declaration of Paris, the, 629, 
744, 807. 

Declaration of the Rights of Man, 
the, 311, 312, 666. 

Deists, the, 287,288, 289, 290, 293. 

Delcasse (dSl-ka-sa/), Theophile, 
706. 

De'li-an League, th.e, 36. 

Demarcation Line, the, 128, 129 
and note 1. 

Democracy, absence of, in the 
Orient, 23; Grseco-Roman, 34, 
35, 36, 37, 58; the Church and, 
86; during the revolutionary 
and Napoleonic era, 326, 327, 
349, 350; disregard of, by the 
Congress of Vienna, 353; mod¬ 
ern, 366-369; the Industrial 
Revolution, and, 592, 593; the 
World War and, 748, 790, 791, 
793. 

Denmark, in the Union of Calmar, 
202; allied with Napoleon, 340, 
357; loses Norway to Sweden, 
357, 479; loses Schleswig-Hol- 




842 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


stein, 412, 479; government 
and colonies of, 480, 481; 

northern Schleswig returned to, 
768 and note 2. 

Departements , French, 309, 310, 
331, 463. 

Diaz (de'ats), Armando, 760. 

Diaz (de'ath), Porfirio, 579. 

Directory, French, 322-326. 

Disarmament conferences, 817- 
819. 

Disestablishment, religious, 440, 
460, 473, 666, 667. 

Disraeli (diz-ra'li), Benjamin, 428, 
429, 449, 527, 546, 704. 

Dissenters, the, 169 and note 1, 
172, 248. 

Divine right of kings, the, 152, 155, 
172, 179, 183, 210, 288, 316, 
326, 353, 354, 369, 790, 791. 
See also Absolutism. 

Divorce laws, 662, 663. 

Domestic system, the, 602. 

Dom Pedro II, 574, 575. 

Don Carlos, Spanish pretender, 
471. 

Drama, Athenian, 38, 39; modern, 
677. 678. 

Dravidians, the, 12, 555, 553, 568. 

Dual Alliance, the, 703, 707. 

Dual Monarchy, the. See Austria- 
Hungary. 

Duma, the, 574, 575, 751, 752. 

Dunant, Henri, 659, 660. 

Dupleix (dii-plSks'), 233, 234. 

Durazzo (doo-rat'so), 712, 713. 

Durham, Lord, Report of, 586, 
587. 

Dushan, Stephen, 520. 

Eastern Question, the, 207, 399, 
524, 528, 531, 709-713, 807. 

Eastern Rumelia, 528. 

East India Company, Dutch, 229, 
230, 565; French, 233; English, 
233, 234, 551, 552. 

Ebert, Friedrich, 783. 

Edict of Milan, 63. 

Edison, Thomas A., 613. 


Education, medieval, 108-110; 
modern, 248, 249, 332, 345, 663- 
665, 791. 

Edward I, king of England, 100, 
102; VI, 140; VII, 432, 705, 
706. 

Egypt, in antiquity, 17-23; Napo¬ 
leon in, 325; British occupation 
of, 544; British rule over, 544, 
545, 711, 742, 822, 823. 

Einstein, Albert, 672, 673. 

Elba, Napoleon at, 347, 352. 

Elizabeth, queen of England, 140, 
146, 154, 177, 233, 235. 

Emigration and immigration, 245, 
246, 576, 577, 585, 587, 588, 616, 

^ 826. 

Emigres (a-me-gra/), the, 313, 321, 
332, 786. 

Ems (Ger. pron. ams) dispatch, 
the, 414. 

Encyclopedists, the, 291, 299. 

England, during the Middle Ages, 
102, 106; the Reformation in, 
138, 139; under James I and 
Charles I, 154-164; the Com¬ 
monwealth and the Protectorate, 
165-168; under Charles- II and 
James II, 168-172; under William 
III and Anne, 172-174; union of, 
with Scotland, 173; in the seven¬ 
teenth century, 174-178; at 
war with Louis XIV, 185, 186, 
187; in the War of the Austrian 
Succession and the Seven Years’ 
War, 214, 215, 223; under the 
first three Georges, 221-225; 
rivalry of, with France in India 
and North America, 233-235, 
259-262; loss of the Thirteen 
Colonies by, 263-270; at war 
with revolutionary and Napo¬ 
leonic France, 319, 325, 331, 336, 
337, 340, 341, 342, 347, 348; 
territorial acquisitions of, by the 
Vienna settlement, 355; in the 
Concert of Europe, 361, 362; 
geography and productions of, 
418, 419; parliamentary reform 




Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 843 


in, 421-431; government of, 
431-437; the Irish Question, 
437-443; the British Empire, 
443-451, 532, 541-545, 550-554, 
566, 567, 581, 585-588; the 
Industrial Revolution in, 593, 
594, 604, 605; commerce of, 
619, 620; adopts free trade, 625- 
627; land tenure in, 630-632 ; 
trade unionism in, 634, 635; 
labor legislation in, 637-639; 
between 1871 and 1914, 704- 
707, 715; in the World War, 
726, 727, 728, 729, 730, 731, 
733, 734, 738, 741, 742, 743, 
757, 758, 759; after the World 
War, 793, 794, 817, 818, 819, 
820. 

“Enlightened despots,” the, 292- 
294. 

Entente cordiale (aN-taNt' k6r- 
dyal'), the, 706, 726. 

E-ras'mus, 116. 

Estates-General, French, 182, 194, 
301-304, 690. 

Es-tho'ni-a, 202, 503, 753, 781. 

Etruscans, the, 46, 47, 48, 49. 

Eugenie (u-zha-ne'), Empress, 393 
and note 1, 456. 

Europe, prehistoric times in, 2-5; 
geography of, 25-27; peoples of, 
27-29. 

Exclusion acts, 826, 827. 

Exploration and discovery, 45, 
note 1, 123-130, 133, 235, 272- 
274, 536-538, 588-591. 

Expositions, universal, 393, 653. 

Factory Acts, British, 637, 638. 

Factory system, the, 602, 604, 636, 
644, 645, 649. 

Fairs, medieval, 97, 98. 

Fascisti (fa-she'ste), the, 791. 

“Fashoda incident,” the, 704. 

“February Revolution,” the, 379, 
380, 645. 

Fenian Brotherhood, the, 440. 

Ferdinand I, emperor of Austria, 
377 and note 1, 381, 382. 


Ferdinand I, king of Rumania, 
526, note 1. 

Ferdinand I, tsar of Bulgaria, 529, 
530, 711, 759. 

Ferdinand VII, king of Spain, 342, 
354, 363, 364, 470, 573. 

Feudalism, medieval, 75-80, 93, 
105; Polish, 219; remnants 
of, abolished in revolutionary 
France, 307. 

Field, Cyrus W., 612. 

Filipinos, the, 563-565, 669. 

Finland, a dependency of Sweden, 
202, 204; acquired by Russia, 
204, note 1, 338, 356, 501; inde¬ 
pendence of, 753, 781. 

Finns, the, 501, 502. 

Fiume (fydo'ma), 779, 811. 

Flanders, 185, 759. 

Flemings, the, 207, 372, 476. 

Florence, 100, 101, 114, 115. 

Florida, 256, 262, 270, 582. 

Foch (fosh), Ferdinand, 730, 758. 

Formosa, 557, 562, 563. 

Four-Power Treaty, the, 818, 819. 

“Fourteen Points,” Wilson’s, 755, 
756, 761, 765. 

Fox, George, 283. 

France, unification of, 103; Hu¬ 
guenot wars in, 147, 148; under 
Richelieu and Mazarin, 179, 180; 
under Louis XIV, 180-193; 
in the War of the Austrian Suc¬ 
cession and the Seven Years’ 
War, 213, 214; rivalry of, with 
England in India and North 
America, 233-235, 259-262; alli¬ 
ance of, with the Thirteen Col¬ 
onies, 267-269, 301; under 

Louis XV, 297, 298; the French 
Revolution, 298-327; the Napo¬ 
leonic era, 329-351; restoration 
of Louis XVIII, 347, 353, 354, 
369; in the Concert of Europe, 
361-365; under Charles X, 
369, 370; the “July Revolu¬ 
tion,” 370, 371; under Louis 
Philippe, 378, 379; the “Febru¬ 
ary Revolution,” 379, 380; un- 




844 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


der Napoleon III, 389-394; ac¬ 
quires Savoy and Nice, 400, 401, 
402; land and people of, 452- 
455 ; under the Third Republic, 
455-460; government of, 460- 
463; colonial possessions of, 463, 
464,540, 541, 550, 566, 581; com¬ 
merce of, 620; land tenure in, 
632; between 1871 and 1914, 
700, 701, 703, 704, 709; in the 
World War, 725, 726, 727, 729, 
730-734, 757-759; territorial ac¬ 
quisitions of, 768, 769, 776, 820; 
after the World War, 793, 794. 

Franche-Comte (fraNsh'koN-ta/), 
185, 719 and note 1. 

Francis I, emperor of Austria, 352, 
358, 806. 

Francis Ferdinand, Austrian Crown 
Prince, assassination of, 721. 

Francis Joseph I, emperor of 
Austria, 382, 383, 400, 401, 493, 
494, 495, 496, 579, 701, 760. 

Franco-German War, the, 351, 
404, 414, 415, 700, 701. 

Frankfort Assembly, 384, 385, 

784; Treaty, 415, 457, 701. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 246, 254, 

255, 271, 297. 

Franks, the, 66, 67, 70. 

Frederick II, the Great, king of 
Prussia, 212-215, 219, 220, 223, 
292, 293, 409, 718, 769; III, 
490, 491. 

Frederick William, the Great Elec¬ 
tor, 211, 718. 

Frederick William I, king of 
Prussia, 212; III, 352, 359, 
361, 806; IV, 377 and note 1, 
384, 385, 386, 409, 487. 

Freemasonry, 396, 669. 

Free trade, adoption of, by Great 
Britain, 625-627. 

“French and Indian War,” the, 
255, 260-262. 

French Revolution, the, 296-327. 

Friars, the, 84, 85. 

Friedland (fret'lant), battle of, 
338. 


Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, 656, 657. 

Fulton, Robert, 606, 611. 

Galicia (gd-ltsh'I-a), 219, 356, 375, 
735, 736, 741, 772. 

Galileo (gal-I-le'o), 119. 

Gal-lip'o-li, 738. 

Gambetta (Fr. pron gaN-bg-ta'), 
Leon, 456, 458, 459, 701. 

Garibaldi (ga-re-bal'de), Giuseppe, 
402, 403. 

Gaul (gol), conquest and Roman- 
ization of, 51. 

Geneva Convention, the, 660, 807. 

Geneva Protocol, the, 816, 817. 

Genoa, 100, 151, 324, 338, 354, 396, 
398, note 1. See also Ligurian 
Republic. 

Geology, 671, 672. 

George, David Lloyd, 441, 632, 
650, 667, 753, 756, 764, 772, 
803, 808. 

George I, king of England, 174, 
221; 11,221,245; 111,223,224, 
264, 265, 274, 378, 421, 422, 
629, 697; IV, 422; V, 432. 

George I, king of Greece, 522. 

Georgia, American state, 245, 250, 
266; European state, 786. 

German East Africa, 540, 543, 741, 
769. 

German Southwest Africa, 540, 
543, 741, 769. 

Germanic Confederation, the, 357, 
358, 406, 411, 413. 

Germans, the, early culture of, 64, 
65; their invasions, 66, 67; 
fusion of, with the Romans, 67. 

Germany, physical features of, 66; 
political condition of, during the 
Middle Ages, 73; the Reforma¬ 
tion in, 136-138; the Thirty 
Years’ War, 148-150; disunited 
condition of, 151, 404, 405; dur¬ 
ing the revolutionary and Napo¬ 
leonic era, 321, 324, 339, 345, 
346, 351; the Vienna settlement 
of, 357; suppression of liberalism 
in, 359-361; revolutionary move- 





Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


merits of 1830 and 1848 in, 
376, 377, 384-386; unification 
of, 404-416; land and people of, 
482-488; imperial government 
of, 484-488; between 1871 and 

* 1914, 488-491; colonies of, 

492, 493 and note 1, 540, 543, 
566, 741, 742, 769; commerce 
of, 620; labor legislation in, 
639; between 1871 and 1914, 
700-702, 705; in the World 
War, 721-761; the German Rev¬ 
olution, 760, 782; peace treaty 
with, 765, 766, 768-770; repub¬ 
lic of, 782-784. 

Gi-bral'tar, fortress of, 187, 188, 
269. 

Girondists (ji-rSn'dfsts), the, 318, 
322. 

Gladstone, William E., 427, 428, 
429, 441, 449, 527, 543, 625, 667. 

“Glorious Revolution,” the, 171, 
172, 259, 265. 

Good Hope, Cape of, 126, 229, 230. 

Gordon, Charles, 543. 

Granada, 105. 

Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the, 339, 
340. 

Great Britain. See England, Ire¬ 
land, Scotland, Wales. 

Great Elector, the, 211, 718. 

Great Fire, the, at London, 177, 
622, 690, 691. 

Greece, ancient, 31-41; independ¬ 
ence of, 521, 522; territorial 
growth of, 523, 530; in the 
World War, 738, 739. 

Greek Church, the, 200, 205, 218, 
282, 292, 517, 521. 

Greeks, the, 31-33, 47. 

Greenland, 75, 235, 589, 590. 

Grey, Earl, 424. 

Grey, Sir Edward, 706, 722, 726. 

Grotius (gro'shb&s), Hugo, 805, 
816. 

Guam (gwam), 566, 582. 

Guiana, Dutch, 231, 355 and note 
1; British, 355, 808. 

Guizot (ge-z6'), 379. 


8 45 

Gunpowder, 122. 

Gustavus Adolphus, 149, 202, 245. 

Haakon (ho'kon) VII, king of Nor¬ 
way, 480. 

Habeas Corpus Act, the, 169, 170, 

221 . 

Hague Peace Conference, the, 
716, 726, 808. 

Hague Tribunal, the, 722, 808, 815. 

Haig (hag), Sir Douglas, 733, 758. 

Haiti (ha'ti), 572, 581 and note 1. 

Hamburg (ham'bdorK), 94, 484 
and note 1. 

Hamitic-speaking peoples, 9, 10. 

Hampden, 158, 159, 160, 162. 

Han'o-ver, 172, 357, 376, 405 and 
note 1, 412, 413. 

Hanoverian dynasty, the, 174 and 
note 1, 221. 

Hapsburg (haps'bdorK) dynasty, 
the, 151, 179, 180, 186, 187, 207 
and note 1, 358, 496, note 1, 
760, 774. 

Hardenberg (har'den-bfirK), Chan¬ 
cellor, 345, 346. 

Harding, President, 768, 817, 822. 

Hargreaves, James, 596. 

Hawaiian Islands, 274, 566, 570, 
582, 818, 819. 

Hebrews. See Jews. 

Hejaz (hgj-az 7 ), kingdom of, 742, 
777, 820. 

Helgoland (hgl'go-lant), 355, 715, 
771. 

Henry, Prince, the Navigator, 125. 

Henry IV, king of France, 148, 191, 
256, 806. 

Henry VII, king of England, 133, 
235; VIII, 139, 140, 690, 691. 

He-rod'o-tus, 39, 40. 

Herzegovina (h8r-ts8-go-ve'na), 
517, 522, 701, 712, 721, 778. 

Hesse (hSs), 413 and note 2. 

Hesse-Cassel, 413. 

Hindenburg (hln'dSn-bdorK), Gen¬ 
eral von, 735, 736, 757, 771. 

Hindus, the, 552, 553. 

History, study of, 1, 2, 676, 677. 



846 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Hohenlinden, battle of, 331. 

Hohenzollern (h6'Sn-ts6l-ern) dy¬ 
nasty, the, 189, 209 and note 1, 
491, 760. 

Holland, becomes independent of 
Spain, 145, 146; wars of Louis 
XIV with, 185, 186, 231; in the 
War of the Austrian Succession, 
214; colonial empire of, 228- 
231; at war with Great Britain, 
231, 269, 270; during the revo¬ 
lutionary and Napoleonic era, 
319, 321, 339; the Austrian 
Netherlands united with, 356, 
572; separation of Belgium 
from, 572; government of, 478; 
colonies of, 478, 479 and note 1, 
565. 

Holstein (hbl'shtin), 405, 411, 412, 
413. See also Schleswig. 

Holy Alliance, the, 806, 807. 

Holy Roman Empire, the, 72, 73, 
151, 185, 186, 339, 340, 405, 406. 

Holy Synod, the, in Russia, 200, 
501, 511. 

Home Rule, Irish, 440-443. 

Homeric poems, the, 32, 33, 34. 

Hoover, H. C., 735, 750. 

Horthy, Nicholas von, 774. 

Hudson, Henry, 230. 

Huguenots (hu'ge-nSts), the, 147, 
148, 176, 191, 211, 230, 245, 284, 
300, 666. 

Humanism, 116 and note 1. 

Humboldt, Alexander von, 589. 

Hungary, revolt of, against Aus¬ 
tria, 382, 383, 493; the Aus- 
gleich, 494, 495; government of, 
495 ; nationalities in, 497, 498; 
becomes an independent state, 
760, 774; Treaty of the Tri- 
naon with, 774. See also Aus¬ 
tria-Hungary. 

Huns, the, 196, 718. 

Husein, king of Hejaz, 777. 

Iceland, 73, 480. 

Il-lyr'i-an Provinces, the, 

356. 


Imperial Federation movement, 
the, 448-451. 

Imperialism, aspects of, 533-535; 
the Industrial Revolution and, 
592; nationalism and, 707, 
708; present aspects of, 819- 
824. 

Inclosures, 630, 631. 

Indemnity, French, 415, 458, 701. 

Independents, the, 164 and note 1, 

166, 169, 237, 238. 

India, in antiquity, 14-16; under 
the Moguls, 233; rivalry of 
France and England in, 233-235; 
government of, 446; a part of 
the British Empire, 550-552, 
554; peoples of, 552, 553; reli¬ 
gions and castes of, 553, 554; 
Indian nationalism, 554, 823. 

Indians, American, 568, 669, 670. 

Indies, East, 229, 270; West, 481, 
580, 581. 

Indo-China, 550. 

Indo-European languages, 10, 29 
and note 1. 

Indulgences, 136, 137. 

Industrial Revolution, the, 592- 
618. 

Industry, government regulation 
of, 636-641. 

Infallibility, papal, dogma of, 667, 
669. 

Initiative, the, in Switzerland, 475. 

Inkermann, battle of, 525. 

Inquisition, the, 143, 144, 145. 

Institute of France, the, 192, 687, 

686 . 

Instrument of Government, the, 

167. 

Insurance, development of, 621, 
622; State, 638, 639. 

Internationalism, ancient, 46, 56, 
57; modern, 652-654. 

International Labor Office, the, 
640, 812. 

International Postal Union, the, 
613, 614, 654. 

International Red Cross, the, 654, 
659, 660, 807, 812. 


339, 





Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 847 


Inter-racial problems, 568-571, 
823-825. 

Invention, modern, 120-123. 

Ionian Islands, 355, 519, 523. 

Iraq. See Mesopotamia. 

Ireland, 102, 166, 420, 437-443, 
667, 724. 

Isabella of Castile, 105, 128, 129. 

Islam (fs'ldm), 538, 553, 556, 669, 
824, 825. 

Istria, 772. 

Italia Irredenta, 404, 740, 789. 

Italian-Turkish War, the, 470, 540. 

Italy, geography and early peoples 
of, 46-48; under Roman rule, 
49, 50; political condition of, 
during the Middle Ages, 73; 
the Renaissance in, 114-118; 
states of, in 1648, 151; during 
the revolutionary and Napo¬ 
leonic era, 323, 324, 331, 334, 
339, 340, 395; the restorations 
in, 354, 355, 396; the Vienna 
settlement of, 357; the revolu¬ 
tionary movements of 1830 and 
1848 in, 376, 383, 384; unifica¬ 
tion of, 394-404; government of, 
466, 467; relations of, with the 
Papacy, 467, 469; colonial pos¬ 
sessions of, 470, 540; between 
1871 and 1914, 702, 708; in the 
World War, 740, 741, 760; ter¬ 
ritorial acquisitions of, 772, 778, 
820. 

Italians, the, 47, 48. 

Ivan, 520. 

Ivan the Great, 197. 

Jacobins (j&k'o-bins), the, 314, 
316, 317, 322, 323, 371. 

“ Jacobites,” the, 222, note 1. 

James I, king of England, 155 and 
note 1, 156, 172, 173, 177, 235, 
237, 238; II, 170, 179, 222, note 
1, 241, 245, 259, 370, 420, 438, 
442. 

Jamestown, settlement of, 236, 237. 

Japan, geography and people of, 
559; civilization of, 560; dur¬ 


ing the nineteenth and twentieth 
centuries, 560-563, 707; in the 
World War, 742, 769, 820. 

Je-ho'vah, 22. 0 

Jena (ya'na), battle of, 338. 

Jerusalem, 742. 

Jesus, 60 and note 1. 

Jews, the, 10, 22, 60, 62, 81, 100, 
172, 211, 248, 284, 503, 512, 669, 
777. 

Joffre (zhSff), Joseph, 730, 758. 

John VI, king of Portugal, 363, 473. 

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 
293, 294. 

Joseph Bonaparte, 339, 342, 573. 

Josephine, Empress, 343, 581, 693. 

Jugoslavs, the, 497, 721, 778. 

Jugoslavia, 772, 774, 778, 779. 

“July Revolution/’ the, 370, 441. 

Junkers (yoon'kgrs), Prussian, 210, 
310, 486, 487, 719. 

Jus-tin'i-an, 54. 

Jutland, battle of, 742, 743. 

Kant (kant), Immanuel, 806. 

Karageorge, 520. 

Kepler, 119. 

Kerensky, Alexander, 752. 

Khartum (Kar-toom'), 543, 544, 
704. 

Kiauchau (kyou-chou'), 492, 557, 
note 1, 742, 769. 

Kiel Canal, the, 628, 715, 720. 

Kitchener, Herbert, 543, 544, 704. 

Knighthood and chivalry, 79, 80. 

Koniggratz (kh-nlK-grSts'), battle 
of. See Sadowa. 

Korea, 13, 557, 562 and note 1. 

Kosciuszko (Polish pron. kftsh- 
chyocsh'ko), Tadeusz, 219, 220. 

Ko'so-vo, battle of, 520. 

Kossuth (k5sh'o6t), Louis, 382, 
383, 493. 

Kruger, Paul, 541, 542. 

Kun (kun), Bela, 791. 

Kurdistan, 776 and note 1. 

Labor legislation, 636-641. 

Labor movement, the, 634-636, 
640, 641. 




848 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Labor Party, British, 437. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 269, 297, 
304, 306, 307, 309, 371. 

Laissez-faire (lS'sa-far'), doctrine 
of, 285, 286, 637, 642, 643. 

Land Purchase Acts, Irish, 440, 
632. 

Land tenure, systems of, 250, 280, 
439, 440, 630-633. 

Langley, S. P., 610. 

Language, Greek, 33, 42; Latin, 
54, 55, 110; French, 111; Eng¬ 
lish, 111, 112, 246, 653. 

Languages, classification of, 9, 10; 
Romance, 54, 55, 110, 111; 
Teutonic, 111; universal, 653. 

Laplace (la-plas'), Marquis de, 675, 
note 1. 

La Salle (la sal'), Robert de, 258. 

Latin America and the World War, 
750. 

Latvia, 781. 

Laud, Archbishop, 158, 159, 160, 
240. 

Lausanne (lo-zan'), Treaty of, 775. 

Law, Roman, 53, 54; interna¬ 
tional, 628, 629, 805, 808, 815, 
816. 

League of Nations, the, 764, 766, 
768, 769, 789, 792, 809-814, 
824, 826. 

Legitimists, the, 378, 458. 

Leipzig (lip'slK), battle of, 346, 
360; German supreme court at, 
488, 772. 

Lenin (ly&'nen), Nicholas, 752, 
785, note 2, 787, 788. 

Leningrad, 785, note 2. 

Leo XIII, pope, 467, 469. 

Leopold I, king of Belgium, 476; 
II, 476, 478, 539, 540. 

Lepanto (la-pan'to), battle of, 
206. 

Lesseps (18-sSps'), Ferdinand de, 
546, 585. 

Lettres de cachet (18tV de ka-sh&'), 
298, 305. 

Letts, the, 503, 781. 

Lhasa (las'a), 549, 550. 


Liaotung (le-ou-toong') Peninsula, 
557, 562, 742. 

Liberal Party, British, 426, 428, 
429, 437, 441, 449. 

Liberia, 538. 

“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity/’ 
291, 326, 327, 338, 349, 350, 422. 

Libya, 470, 540. 

Lichnowsky, Prince, 724. 

Lingv (len-ye'), battle of, 347. 

Ligurian Republic, 324, 338. 

Li Hung Chang, 558. 

Lim'burg, 374 and note 1. 

Liquor traffic, the, abolition of, 
658, 659. 

Lisbon, 228, 229, 342. 

Lister, Joseph, 674. 

Literature, Greek, 39, 40; Roman, 
56; medieval, 112; Renais¬ 
sance, 116, 117; English, in the 
seventeenth century, 177, 178; 
French, under Louis XIV, 192; 
modern, 677, 678. 

Lithuania, 151, 216, 503, 633, 741, 
753, 781. 

Lithuanians, the, 209, 216, 503. 

Livingstone, David, 537. 

Livonia, 202, 503, 753, 781. 

Locke, John, 287, 288, 289, 297. 

Locomotive, the, 607, 608, 609. 

Lollards, the, 804. 

Lom'bar-dy, 356, 357, 401. 

London, 174, 175, 177, 690-697. 

London Company, the, 235, 236, 
237, 238, 239, 253. 

Lords, House of, 154, 165, 422, 

424, 425. 

Lorraine (16-ran'), 150, 185, 186, 
297, 349, 415, 416, 701, 703, 

719, 761, 768. See also Alsace. 

“Lost Provinces,” the, 415, 416. 

Louis'XIII, 179, 180; XIV, ISO- 
193, 194, 195, 233, 258, 259, 

277, 321, 335, 336, 346, 455, 

681, 686, 687, 691, 727; XV, 
47, note 1, 258, 297, 298, 683; 
XVI, 298-319, 322, 683; XVII, 
347, note 1; XVIII, 347, 353, 
354, 359, 371. 





Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Louis Bonaparte, 389, 390. 

Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon 

III. 

Louis Philippe (loo-e' fe-lep'), king 
of France, 370, 371, 376, 378, 
379, 381. 

Louisiana, 190, 258, 262, 581, 582. 

Louvre (loo'vr’), the, palace of, 
118, 192, 308, 686. 

Lovola (lo-yo'la), St. Ignatius, 143, 
282. 

Lublin, Union of, 216. 

Lucca, 151, 357, 401, note 2. 

Ludendorff, General, 757. 

Luneville, Treaty of, 331, note 2. 

Lu-si-ta'ni'-a , the, 745 and note 1. 

Luther, Martin, 136-138, 152. 

Lutheranism, 138, 142, 144, 145, 
148, 150, 152, 218, 283. 

Lux'em-burg, 374 and note 1, 
726, 729, 741, 761. 

Lyell (li'Sl), Sir Charles, 671. 

Lyon, Mary, 661. 

Macedonia (mas-e-do'ni-a), 41, 

42, 530, 713. 

MacMahon (mak-ma-oN'), Mar¬ 
shal, 414, 458, 459. 

Ma-gel'lan, Ferdinand, 129, 130, 
272. 

Magenta (md-jgn'td), battle of, 
400. 

Mag'na Car'ta, 106, 158, 168, 169, 
171, 182, 431, 690. 

Magyars (mod'yors), the, 358, 383, 
493, 497, 498, 774. 

Mahdi (ma'de), the, 543. 

Malay Archipelago, 565 and note 1. 

Malay Peninsula, 550. 

Malays, the, 563, 565, 568. 

Manchuria, 555, 562. 

Mandatory system, the, 811, 812. 

Manila Bay, battle of, 564. 

Manorial system, medieval, 86-91; 
survivals of, 176, 281. 

Manufacturing, inventions in, 594- 
601. 

Marat (ma-ra'), 315. 

“ March Laws,” the, 382. 


849 

Marconi, Guglielmo, 613. 

Marengo, battle of, 331. 

Maria Louisa, 343. 

Maria Theresa (tS-re'sa), 208, 213, 
214, 219, 220, 293, 299. 

Marie Antoinette (aN-twa-ngt'), 
299, 300, 309, 314, 315, 318, 
322, 683. 

Marlborough, Duke of, 187. 

Marne (marn), the, battle of, 730, 
731, 758. 

Marx, Karl, 645-647, 782, 788. 

Mary (wife of William III), 171 
and note 2. 

Mary Tudor, 140. 

Maryland, 242, 243, 247, 248, 
250, 251, 252, 254. 

Massachusetts, settlement of, 240- 
242; one of the Thirteen Colo¬ 
nies, 247, 248, 249, 252, 253, 255. 

Mathematics, modern, 176. 

Maximilian, emperor of Mexico, 
496, 579. 

Mayflower Compact, the, 239, 
240. 

Mazarin (ma-za-r&N'), Cardinal, 
180, 182, 185, 687. 

Mazurian Lakes, the, battle of, 
735. 

Mazzini (mat-se'ne), Guiseppe, 
384, 396, 397, 398, 399, 403. 

Mecca, 711, 742. 

Medicine, modern, 674. 

Medina (ma-de'na), 711, 742. 

Mediterranean Sea, 29, 30, 46. 

Mehemet Ali (ma'he-met a'le), 544. 

Mercantile system, the, 226, 227, 
285, 533, 534. 

Merchant guilds, 95. 

Mer-o-vin'gi-an dynasty, the, 681. 

Mes-o-po-ta'mi-a, 711, 742, 759, 
777, 820, 823. 

Metals, the, introduction of, 5, 6, 
19, 31. 

Methodists, the, 283, 655, 669. 

Metternich (mgt'er-niK), Prince, 
352, 357, 359, 360, 362, 363, 372, 
380, 506, 582. 

Metternichismus, 358-361, 363, 377. 



850 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Metz, 150, 185, 414, 415. 

Mexico, 578-580, 746, 748, 750. 

Michael Romanov, 198. 

Middle Ages, the, 69, 70. 

“Middle Europe,” 565, 569, 571. 

Michelangelo (Ital. pron. me-kel- 
an'ja-lo), 117. 

Mikado, the, 560, 561. 

Milan Decree, 340. 

Militarism, 183, 184, 211, 713-717. 

Milton, John, 177,178, 284. 

Mi-nor'ca, 187, 270. 

Mir, the Russian, 633. 

Mirabeau (me-ra-bo'), Count of, 
302, 304, 310, 311, 314. 

Missions, Christian, 256, 538, 563, 
564, 669, 670. 

Modena (mo'da-na), 151, 357, 376, 
383, 401. 

Mo-guls', the, rule of, in India, 233. 

Mohammedanism. See Islam. 

Moliere (mo-lyar'), 192. 

Moltke, Hellmuth von, 409, 410, 
411, 414. 

Mo-luc'cas. See Spice Islands. 

Monarchists, the, in France, 458, 
459, 462. 

Monasticism, 83, 84. 

Money, 98, 134, 623, 624. 

Mongolia, 555. 

Mongolian race, the, 8, 12, 568. 

Mongols, the, 123, 196, 197, 215. 

Monroe Doctrine, the, 364, 582, 
583, 708, 820. 

Montcalm (moN-kalm'), Marquis 
de, 223, 262. 

Mon-te-ne'gro, 151, 206, 519, 520, 
527, 713, 723, 736, 739, 741. 

Montesquieu (moN-t6s-ke-u'), 289, 
291, 292, 296. 

Moravia, 381, 779. 

Mo-re'a, the, 516, 522. 

Moreau (mo-ro'), General, 331. 

Morocco, 538, 541, 706, 708, 709, 
807. 

Mors3, Samuel F. B., 611. 

Moscow (mSs'ko), 199, 201, 204, 
344, 345, 350, 500, 785. 

Music, 118, 678, 679. 


Mussolini (miis-so-le'ne), Benito, 
791. 

Mustapha Kemal (mus'ta-fa ke- 
mal'), 775. 

Mut-su-hi'to, emperor of Japan, 
560 and note 1, 561. 

Nansen, Fridtjof, 589. 

Nantes (naNt), Edict of, issued, 
148; revoked, 176, 191, 230, 
245, 284. 

Naples, 187, 339, 354, 363, 403. 

Napoleon I, Bonaparte, 322-326, 
329-351, 388, 389, 395, 405, 406, 
681, 685, 687, 689; III, 380, 385, 
389-394, 400, 401, 402, 412, 413, 
456, 496, 517, 524, 578, 579, 
581, 583, 681, 683. 

Naseby (naz'bi), battle of, 163. 

National Assembly, French, 303, 
304, 309-312, 317. 

National Convention, French, 317- 
322, 332. 

Nationalism, rise of, 106; during 
the revolutionary and Napo¬ 
leonic era, 341, 342, 345, 350, 
388, 389; disregard of, by the 
Congress of Vienna, 355, 358, 
406; sentiment of, 387-389; 
the Industrial Revolution and, 
593; internationalism and, 700; 
imperialism and, 708; after the 
World War, 788, 789, 822, 823. 

Nationalist Party, Irish, 437, 441. 

Nationalists, Turkish, 775. 

Na-va-ri'no, battle of, 522. 

Navigation Acts, the, 264, 627. 

Navy. See Sea-power. 

Nebular hypothesis, the, 675 and 
note 1. 

Negro race, the, 8, 9, 536, 568, 
825, 826. 

Nelson, Horatio, 325, 337, 693. 

Ne-o-lith'ic Age, the, 4, 5. 

Netherlands, 145, 146. See also 
Holland. 

Neuilly (nu-ye'), Treaty of. 774. 

Neutrality, Swiss, 357, 807; Bel¬ 
gian, 374, 726, 727, 728, 807. 




Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 851 


New England, colonization of, 
237-242; religious conditions in, 
247, 248; educational system 
of, 249; economic development 
of, 249, 250; slavery in, 252; 
political development of, 253, 

254, 255; United Colonies of, 

255. * 

Newfoundland, 235, 260, 262, 585, 
587, 706. 

New Guinea, 492, 565, 568, 591. 

New South Wales, 567. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 176, 177. 

New York, state, 245, 247, 248, 
250, 252, 253. 

New Zealand, exploration of, 273; 
colonization of, 567; labor legis¬ 
lation in, 639, 640. 

Nicsea (ni-se'd), Council of, 63. 

Nice (nes), 324, 354, 400, 402. 

Nicholas, prince and king of Mon¬ 
tenegro, 520. 

Nicholas, Russian grand duke, 
735. 

Nicholas I, tsar of Russia, 375, 
376, 383, 506-508, 522, 523, 524; 
II, 513-515, 715, 716, 751, 780. 

Niemen River, 215, 338, 345. 

Niger (ni'jer) River, 537. 

Nightingale, Florence, 525. 

Nihilism, Russian, 509-511, 512. 

Nile River, sources of, 537. 

Nobel (no-bel'), Alfred, 804. 

Nobility, feudal, 75-78; British, 
278, 432, 434; French, 279, 334. 

Normans, the, 75 and note 1, 79. 

North German Confederation, the, 
413, 416. 

North, Lord, 224, 225, 336, 421. 

Northmen, the, 72, 73. 

North Pole, the, discovery of, 589. 

Northwest Passage, the, 589 and 
note 1. 

Norway, in the Union of Calmar, 
202; allied with Napoleon, 340; 
united with Sweden, 356, 357, 
479; separates from Sweden, 
480; government of, 480. 

Novara (no-va'ra), battle of, 383. 


Nova Scotia, 260, 585, 587. 

Novgorod (nov'go-r6t), 197. 

Oceania, opening up and partition 
of, 563-567, 708, 769. 

O’Connell, Daniel, 440. 

Old Regime, the, 276-294. 

Om'dur-man, battle of, 544. 

Orange, house of, 356. 

Orangemen, the, 442. 

Orders in Council, British, 341, 
585. 

Orlando, Vittorio, 756. 

Orleanists, the, 458. 

Orleans (or-la-aN'), Duke of, 322. 

Orleans monarchy, the, 378, 379. 

Orthodox (Russian) Church, 200, 
205, 292, 501, 509, 512, 517, 
667, 787. 

Otto I, the Great, 72, 73. 

Ottoman Turks, 69, 105, 115, 151, 
517, 518, 519. See also Turkey. 

Owen, Robert, 644. 

Pacific Ocean, exploration of, 272- 
274. 

Painting, Renaissance, 117, 118; 
modern, 177, 631, 682. 

Pa-lse-o-lith'ic Age, the, 2-4. 

Pale, the Irish, 438. 

Palestine, 742, 776, 777. 

Panama, 578, 585, 750. 

Panama Canal, 445, 581, 584, 585, 
628. 

Pan-Americanism, 583, 584. 

Pan-American Union, the, 584, 
804. 

Pan-Germanism, 717-720. 

Pan-Islamism, 824, 825. 

Papacy, medieval, 81, 82. 

Papal Guarantees, Law of, 469. 

Papal States. See States of the 
Church. 

Paris, revolutionary, 304, 306, 307, 
309, 315, 317, 322, 370, 371; 
siege of, 414, 415; described, 
681-690. 

Paris, Count of, 458. 

Paris, Peace of (1763), 215, 225, 



Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


852 


262, 297; Peace of (1783), .269; 
Treaty of (1856), 394, 400, 525, 
526; Peace of (1919-1923), 764, 
788. 

Parliament, British, under the 
Tudors, 154; under James I 
and Charles I, 155-158; re¬ 
forms of the Long, 160; the 
“Rump/’ 164-167; under 
Charles II and James II, 168, 
170; under William III, 172, 
173; in the nineteenth century, 
422-431; organization of, 432- 
437. 

Parliament Act of 1911, the, 434. 

Parma, 151, 357, 376, 383, 401. 

Parnell, C. S., 441. 

Parties, British, 437; French, 462; 
Italian, 467; German, 486, 487. 

Pasteur (pas-tur'), Louis, 673, 674. 

Peace Conference, the, 763-766. 

Peace movement, the, 715, 716, 
803-808. 

Peary, Robert E., 589. 

Peasantry, the, in the Middle Ages, 
88, 90, 91; in eighteenth-cen¬ 
tury Europe, 281, 285, 306, 307. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 625. 

Peking (pe-king'), 558. 

Penal code, the, reform of, 656-658. 

Peninsular War, the, 342, 343. 

Penn, William, 242, 245, 248, 666, 
806. 

Pennsylvania, 243, 245, 247, 248, 
249, 251, 252, 254, 666. 

Pershing, General J. J., 758. 

Persia, 18, 22, 35, 41, 548, 820. 

Peter I, king of Serbia, 521, 712. 

Peter the Great, 198-201, 204, 205, 
274, 277, 282, 790. 

Petition of Right, the, 157, 158, 
168, 171, 221. 

Petrarch (pe'trark), 115. 

Petrograd (pe'tro-grad), 201, note 
1, 785 and note 2. 

Philip II, king of Spain, 144, 145, 
146, 147. 

Philippine Islands, 129, 131, note 
1, 472, 563-565, 582. 


Philosophy, Athenian, 40; French, 
in the eighteenth century, 288- 
291; modern, 675, 676. 

Phoenicia (fe-nish'i-a), 18, 21, 32. 

Physiocrats, the, 285, 286, 299. 

Piedmont, 338, 354, 363, 398 and 
note 1. 

Pilgrims, the, 237-240, 247. 

Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham), 
222-224, 265, 336. 

Pitt, William (the Younger), 336, 
337, 339, 421, 422, 625. 

Pius IX, pope, 383, 384, 397, 398, 
469, 667. 

Plassey, battle of, 234. 

Plato, 40. 

Plebiscites, 330, 334, 349, 404, 768 
and note 2, 778. 

Plehve (pla've), 511, 512, 513, 
514. 

Plevna, 527. 

Plymouth, settlement of, 238-240. 

Pobedonostsev (pa-be-da-nos'tsSf), 
511, 512, 513, 514. 

“Pocket” boroughs, 423, 425, 427. 

Poetry, medieval, 112; modern, 
677, 678. 

Poincare (pwaN-ka-ra/), President, 
763. 

Poland, kingdom of, 151, 204, 215- 
219; partitions of, 219, 220; 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 340, 
356; in the Vienna settlement, 
356, 375; revolts of, in the 
nineteenth century, 376 and note 
1; in the World War, 736, 741, 
753, 780; republic of, 769, 772, 
780, 781, 793. 

Poles, the, 215, 497, 503, 772. 

Polignac (po-len-yak'), Prince de, 
370. 

Political economy, science of, 285, 
286. 

Polo, Marco, 123, 124, 128. 

Pol-ta'va, battle of, 204. 

Polynesians, the, 563, 568. 

Pom-e-ra'ni-a, western, 203, 204, 
210, 356, 405; eastern, 210. 

Pope, the, loses temporal power, 



Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 853 


404, 469; infallibility of, 667, 
669. See also Papacy. 

Popular sovereignty, doctrine of, 
152, 288, 291, 297, 326, 349, 
354. 

Population, statistics of, 29, 453, 
568, 615, 616, 825. 

Port Arthur, 557 and note 1, 562, 
742. 

Porto Rico, 472, 581, 582. 

Portsmouth, Treaty of, 562. 

Portugal, acquires a colonial em¬ 
pire, 130, 131; a member of 
the Grand Alliance against Louis 
XIV, 186; French invasion 
of, 342; revolutions in, 363, 
473; becomes a republic, 473, 
474; colonial possessions of, 
474 and note 1, 538, 574. 

Posen, 356, 375, 769. 

Potato Famine, the, in Ireland, 
439, 626. 

Pragmatic Sanction, the, 208, 209. 

Prague, Treaty of, 413. 

Prehistory, 2-5. 

Presbyterianism, 163, 164, 169, 
247, 283. 

Pressburg, Treaty of, 338, note 1. 

“Pride’s Purge,” 164. 

Printing, invention of, 120-122. 

Proletariat, the, 281 and note 1, 
315, 317. 

Proportional representation, 477, 
478 and note 1. 

Protective system, the, 190, 627. 

Protectorate, the, in England, 167, 
168. 

Protestant Episcopal Church, the, 
140, 247. 

Protestants, doctrines of, 140-142; 
sects of, 142, 169, 247, 283, 284, 
669. 

Protocol of Troppau, the, 362, 
363. 

Prussia, origin of, 209, 210; be¬ 
comes a kingdom, 210; under 
the Great Elector, 211; under 
Frederick the Great, 213-215, 
292, 293; shares in the parti¬ 


tions of Poland, 220;- wars of, 
with France, during the revolu¬ 
tionary and Napoleonic era, 316, 
317, 319, 321, 337, 340, 346, 347, 
348, 349; acquisitions of, by the 
Vienna settlement, 356; in the 
Concert of Europe, 361-363; 
revolutionary movement of 1848 
in, 384-385; as the unifier of 
Germany, 408, 409; wars of, 
with Denmark and Austria, 412, 
413; forms North German Con¬ 
federation, 413; at war with 
France, 414, 415; heads new 
German Empire, 416, 487; gov¬ 
ernment of, 416, 417. 

Prussia, East, 210, 214, 218, 633, 
735, 769; West, 210, 220, 633, 
759. 

Ptolemy (tSl'e-ml), 45, note 1. 

Public debts, statistics of, 800. 

Public ownership, 641-643. 

Public school system, the, 249, 
663-665. 

Punic Wars, the, 51 and note 1. 

Puritan Revolution, the, 160-168. 

Puritans, the, rise of, 156; perse¬ 
cuted by Laud, 159; divide into 
Presbyterians and Independents, 
163, 164 and note 1; reaction 
against, 169; establish them¬ 
selves in Massachusetts, 240-242. 

Pym, John, 160, 162. 

Quakers, the, 169, 247, 283, 654, 
669, 804. 

Quebec, city, 256, 258, 262; prov¬ 
ince, 587. 

“Queen Anne’s War,” 187, note 1. 

Queensland, 567. 

Races of man, 8-10, 568, 825. 

Radetzky (ra-dfits'ke), Marshal, 
383 

Railroads, 545, 546, 548, 576, 607, 
608, 643. 

Raleigh (ro'li), Sir Walter, 235. 

Rationalism in the eighteenth 
century, 287, 288, 290, 293. 



854 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Referendum, the, in Switzerland, 
475. 

Reform Acts: First, 424, 425; 

Second, 428, 429; Third, 429. 
Reformation, the, 135-142. 
Reichsrat (riKs'rat), 783. 

Reichstag (riKs'taK), the, 485, 486, 

487, 727, 783, 784. 

Reign of Terror, the, 321, 322, 
683. 

Religion, Palaeolithic, 4; Oriental, 
14, 16, 22, 23; Graeco-Roman, 
33, 60. See also Brahmanism, 
Buddhism, Christianity, Islam. 
Religions, world, statistics of, 669. 
Renaissance (re-na/sans), the, 114- 
118. 

Reparation, German, 769-771. 
Representation, 37, 51, 253, 367, 
422-425, 427, 429, 430, 485, 487, 

488, 495, 511, 514, 515, 530, 
791, 793. 

Revolutionary War, American, 

. 267-269. 

Rhenish Palatinate, the, 245, 385. 
Rhine, River, 185, 405, 628, 768. 
Rhinelands, the, Allied occupation 
of, 761, 770, 771. 

Rhode Island, 242, 247, 248, 271, 

666 . 

Rhodes, Cecil, 542, 543, 546. 
Rhodesia, 447. 

Richelieu (re-she-lyu')? Cardinal, 
149, 179, 180, 181, 185, 192, 257. 
“Rights of man,” the, 311, 312, 
326, 349. 

Rigveda, the, 15, 16. 

Robespierre (ro-bSs-pyar'), 316, 
319, 320, 322. 

Romagna (ro-maN'ya), 401 and 
note 3. 

Roman Catholics, 172, 243, 248, 
282, 284. 

Roman Church, the, in the Middle 
Ages, 80-86; the Reformation 
and Counter Reformation, 135- 
144; in the eighteenth century, 
282; disestablishment of, in 
Europe, 667. 


Romanov (ro-ma'nof) dynasty, 
the, 198, 205, 751. 

Roman Republic, Mazzini’s, 384, 
398, 403. 

Rome, founding of, 48, 49; ex¬ 
pansion of, 49-51; the Roman 
empire, 52-60; becomes the 
capital of the Italian kingdom, 
404. 

Rom'u-lus Au-gus'tu-lus, 57. 

Roon, Albrecht von, 409, 410, 
412, 414. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 562, 708. 

“Roundheads,” the, 162 and note 
1, 170. 

Rousseau (roo-so'), Jean Jacques, 
290, 291, 316, 323, 475, 687. 

Royal Society, the, 177. 

Rudolf of Hapsburg, Count, 207. 

Ruhr, the, occupation of, 770, 771. 

Rumania, rise of, 526, 527; in the 
World War, 738, 739, 741; 
territorial acquisitions of, 772 
and note 1, 774, 793. 

Rumanians, the, 383, 498, 517. 

Rump Parliament, the, 164, 165, 
166. 

Russia, before Peter the Great, 
151, 195-198; under Peter the 
Great, 198-201; under Cather¬ 
ine the Great, 205-207, 292; in 
the Seven Years’ War, 214; 
shares in the partitions of Po¬ 
land, 219, 220; during the revo¬ 
lutionary and Napoleonic era, 
325, 331, 337, 338, 344, 345, 346; 
territorial acquisitions of, by the 
Vienna settlement, 356; in the 
Concert of Europe, 361-365; 
peoples of, 500-503; during the 
nineteenth century, 504-515; 
land tenure in, 633; between 
1871 and 1914, 701, 702, 703, 
704, 712, 715; in the World War, 
722, 724, 725, 735, 736, 753; 
the Russian Revolution, 750- 
753, 784-788. 

Russians, the, 500, 501. 

Russo-Japanese War, the, 562. 





Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Russo-Turkish War, the, 526, 527. 
Ru-the'ni-ans, the, 497, 500. 


Saar (zar) Basin, 768, 811. 

Sadowa (sa'do-va), battle of, 413. 

St. Benedict, 83. 

St. Dominic, 84. 

St. Francis, 84. 

St.-Germain, Treaty of, 772. 

St. He-le'na, Napoleon at, 348. 

St. Paul, 60, 62. 

St. Petersburg, 201 and note 1. 
See also Petrograd. 

Salisbury (solz'ber-i), Lord, 704. 

Sa-lo-ni'ka, 739. 

Salvador, 578, 750, note 1. 

Salvation Army, the, 659. 

Samoa, 566, 582, 769. 

San Marino (ma-re'no), 93, 763. 

San Stefano (sta'fa-no), Treaty of, 
522. 

Santo Domingo, 581 and note 1, 
763. 

Sarajevo (sa'ra-ya-vo), 721. 

Saratoga, battle of, 269. 

Sardinia, 187, 189, 320, 323, 324, 
354, 357, 383, 384, 398, 399, 400, 
401, 403. 

Savoy, 151, 187, 189, 324, 354, 398, 
400, 401. 

Saxony, 214, 338, 339, 356, 357, 
376, 385, 412, 641. 

Scandinavia, the Reformation in, 
138. 

Schleswig (shlaz'viK), 411, 412, 413 
and note 1, 626 and note 2. See 
also Holstein. 

Science, Oriental, 21; Hellenistic, 
45, 46; Renaissance, 119, 120; 
development of, in the seven¬ 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, 
196, 197, 296, 287; modern, 
670-675. 

Scotch-Irish, the, 245. 

Scotland, 102, 155, 173, 419, 420. 

Scott, Captain, R. F., 591. 

Sculpture, 21, 38, 117, 118, 679. 

Scu'ta-ri, 712, 713. 


855 

Sea-power, British, 146, 235, 260, 
331, 337, 341, 444, 445, 742, 
743, 818. 

Sedan (se-daN'), battle of, 414, 455. 

Semitic-speaking peoples, 10. 

Sepoy Mutiny, the, 551. 

“ September massacres,” the, 317. 

Serbia, 520, 521, 527, 530, 712, 713, 
721, 722, 723, 724, 725, 736, 
738, 739, 741, 778. 

Serbo-Croats, the, 383, 497, 517, 
778. 

Serfdom, 90, 91, 94, 281, 307, 345, 
351, 508, 633. 

Settlement, Act of, 173, 174, 221. 

Sevastopol, siege of, 524, 525. 

“Seven Weeks’ War.” See 
Austro-Prussian War. 

Seven Years’ War, the, 214, 215, 
. 235, 293, 297. 

Sevres (sa/vr’), Treaty of, 774, 
775. 

Shackleton, Sir Ernest, 591. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 637, 638. 

Shakespeare, 117. 

Shantung (shan'toong'), 492, 769, 
809. 

“Ship-money,” 158, 159, 160. 

Shogun (sho'goon), Japanese, 560. 

Siam (si-am'), 550, 706. 

Siberia, 56, 405, 406, 637, 681. 

Sicily, 46, 50, 51, 69, 75, 81, 189, 
354, 403. 

Sieyes (sya-ySs'), the Abbe, 302, 
308, 326. 

Si-le'si-a, Prussian, 213, 214, 215, 
769, 813; Austrian, 779. 

Sinn Fein (shm'fan'), the, 437, 442. 

Six Points, the, 426, 427. 

Slavery, Oriental, 23; Graeco- 
Roman, 37, 53, 58; medieval, 
64, 85, 86, 90; introduction of, 
into the Thirteen Colonies, 251, 
252; abolition of, 655. 

Slave trade, the, abolition of, 654, 
655. 

Slovakia, 779. 

Slovaks, 497, 779. 

Slovenes (slo-vens'), the, 497, 778. 



856 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Smith, Adam, 285, 286, 449, 592, 
604, 623, 642. . 

Smith, Captain John, 238. 

Smuts, General, 772. 

Smyrna, 775. 

Sobieski (Polish pron. so-by6s'ke), 
John, 206. 

Socialism, rise and spread of, 
643-6 '8; in Russia, 751, 752, 
787, 788; in Germany, 782, 
783, 791; communistic move¬ 
ments, 791. 

Socialist parties, 487, 647, 648. 

Society of Jesus, the, 143, 256, 257, 
282 and note 2, 369. 

Soc'ra-tes, 40. 

Solferino (s5l-fe-re'no), battle of, 
400, 659. 

So-ma'li-land, Italian, 540; 
French, 541. 

Somme (som) River, the, battle of, 
733. 

Sonderbund (zon'der-bunt), the, 
474. 

Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 172, 
174. 

South African War, the, 450, 451, 
542, 705. 

South Pole, the, discovery of, 449. 

Soviets, Russian, 609, 610. 

Spain, unification of, 103, 105; 
acquires a colonial empire, 131, 
133; cedes territories to France, 
185; allied with France in the 
War of the Spanish Succession, 
186; in the War of the Austrian 
Succession, 213, 214; at war 
with Great Britain, 269, 270; 
during the revolutionary and 
Napoleonic era, 319, 321, 340, 
342; the Bourbon restoration in, 
354; revolutions in, during the 
nineteenth century, 363, 364, 
470, 471; under Alfonso XII 
and Alfonso XIII, 471, 472; 
government of, 472; colonial 
possessions of, 472, 473, 563, 
564, 572-574. 

Spanish-American colonies, the, 


revolt of, 342, 364, 472, 573, 
574. 

Spanish-American War, the, 472, 
581, 582. 

Spanish Netherlands, 145, 150. 
See also Austrian Netherlands. 

Spanish Succession, War of the, 
186, 187, 189, 210. 

Spartacans, 783 and note 1, 791. 

Spencer, Herbert, 676. 

Spice Islands, 129, 229. 

Spinning wheel, the, 595. 

Spitzbergen, 480, note 1. 

Stamp Act, the, 265. 

Stanley, Sir Henry M., 537, 538, 
539. 

States of the Church, the, 82, 151, 
339, 354, 357, 376, 383, 384, 
394, 404. 

Steamboat, the, 606, 607. 

Steam engine, Watt’s, 599, 600. 

Stein, Baron vom, 345, 352, 357, 
406. 

Stephenson, George, 607, 608. 

Strafford, Earl of, 158, 159, 160. 

Stuart dynasty, the, 155 and note 
1, 174, note 1. 

Submarine boat, the, 611, 743, 756, 
818, 819. 

Submarine cable, the, 612. 

Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian, 543, 544, 
704. 

Suez Canal, 546, 547, 628, 711, 807. 

Suffrage, manhood, 253, 369, 380, 
391, 392, 423, 425, 427, 429, 430, 
467, 472, 476, 477, 478, 480, 495, 
514, 515, 791; woman, 430. 4 77~- 
478, 480, 661, 662, 791. 

Supremacy, Act of, 139. 

Supreme Council, the, 764, 765. 

Supreme Court, the, of the United 
States, 272. 

Surgery, modern, 674. 

Su-ri-nam', 231, 355, note 1. 

Sweden, growth and decline of, 
150, 202, 204; in the Seven 
Years’ War, 214; joins the 
Third Coalition against France, 
327; loses Finland to Russia, 




Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 857 


328, 356; union of, with Nor¬ 
way, 356, 357, 479; separation 
of, from Norway, 480; govern¬ 
ment of, 480. 

Switzerland, 138, 139, 150, 340, 
355, 474-476, 807. 

Syndicalism, 648. 

Syria, 325, 711, 759, 776. 

Taille (ta/y’), the, 280. 

Talleyrand (ta-lS-raN'), 352, 353. 

Tannenberg, battle of, 735. 

Tasman, Abel, 273. 

Tasmania, 273, 566, 567. 

Taxation, under the Old Regime, 
281, 285, 298, 300. 

Telegraph and telephone, 611, 612, 
613. 

Temporal power of the Papacy, 
82, 354, 394, 404, 327, 669. 

“ Tennis Court Oath,” the, 303, 

311. 

Teutonic Knights, the, 204, 210, 
213, 503. 

Thiers (tyar), L. A., .379, 457, 458. 

Third Estate, the, 94, 280, 281, 
302, 303, 304. 

“Third International,” the, 788. 

Third Section, Russian, 507, 509. 

Thirteen Colonies, the, established, 
235-246; civilization of, 246, 
247; economic development of, 
249-252; political conditions in, 
253-256; become independent, 
263-270; establish the United 
States, 270-272. 

Thirty Years’ War, the, 148- 
150, 179, 202, 381, 805. 

Thrace, 522, 775. 

Tibet (tl-bSt'), 549, 550, 707. 

Tientsin (te-Sn'tsen), 548. 

Tilsit, Peace of, 338, 339, 340. 

Tithes, church, in France, 281, 307. 

Togo, 540, 741, 769. 

Toleration, religious, 142, 148, 150, 
172, 191, 248, 284, 287, 292, 293, 
332, 665, 666. 

Toleration Act, the, 172, 248, 284. 

Tolls, 281, 625, 628. 


“Tories,” the, 267, 585. 

Torture, use of, 656. 

Tory Party, the, origin of, 170 and 
note 1; in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries, 222, 224, 
421, 422, 424, 426. See also 
Conservative Party. 

Toulon (too-loN'), 320, 323, 325. 

Townshend Acts, the, 365. 

Trade routes, medieval, 124, 125. 

Trade unions, 634-636. 

Traf-al-gar', Cape, battle of, 337, 
338, 340. 

Trans-Andean Railway, 576, 608. 

Transportation, inventions in, 605- 
611. 

Trans-Siberian Railway, the, 548, 
608, 703. 

Transvaal (trans-val'), the, 541, 
542. 

Transylvania, 498, 739, 772, note 1, 
734. 

Trent, Council of, 143. 

Trentino (trfin-te'no), the, 404, 
741, 772, 778. 

Trieste (tre-Ss'ta), 404, 740, 741, 
760, 772, 778. 

Triple Alliance, the, 701, 702, 703, 
707, 793. 

Triple Entente, the, 706, 707, 729, 
793. 

Trip'o-li, 470, 540, note 1, 362. 

Troppau (trop'ou), Congress of, 
362. 

Trotsky, Leo, 752, 787. 

Tuileries (twel-re'), palace of the, 
308. 

Tunis, 464, 541, 702. 

Turenne (tii-rgn'), 183. 

Turgot (tiir-go'), 299, 300, 307, 
448. 

Turkey, expansion of, 206; decline 
of, since 1683, 206, 207, 519; 
loses Montenegro, Serbia, and 
Greece, 520-523; in the Cri¬ 
mean War, 524, 525; loses Ru¬ 
mania, 526; in the Russo-Turk- 
ish War, 527; loses Bulgaria, 
528; Young Turk Revolution 



858 Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


in, 529, 530; in the First and 
Second Balkan wars, 530, 531; 
Germany and, 709-711; in the 
World War, 738, 742, 759; peace 
treaty with, 774-776. 

Turks. See Ottoman Turks. 

Tuscany, 151, 357, 383, 401 and 
note 2. 

Two Sicilies, kingdom of the, 75, 
79, 151, 354, 357, 363, 383, 403. 

Tyrol, 772, 778. 

Tze-hsi (tse-she'), empress-dow¬ 
ager of China, 557, 558. 

U-boat warfare, German, 743, 744, 
745, 746. 

Ukrainia, 197 and note 1, 204, 
753, 786. 

Ulm (oolm), 337, 338. 

Ulster, 438, 441, 442. 

Union, Acts of: England and Scot¬ 
land, 173, 420; Great Britain 
and Ireland, 420, 440, 442. 

Unionist Party, British, 437, note 1. 

Unitarians, the, 172, 248, 283, 284. 

United Colonies of New England, 
the, 255, 270. 

United Kingdom, formation of, 
420; government of, 431-437. 

United Netherlands. See Holland. 

United States, the, formation of, 
270-272,581,582; colonial posses¬ 
sions of, 564, 565, 566, 581, 582; 
commerce of, 620, 621; trade 
unionism in, 635, 636; labor 
legislation in, 639; in the World 
War, 744-750, 757, 758, 759; 
fails to ratify the Peace Treaty 
with Germany, 766, 768; as an 
imperialist power, 820, 822. 

Universities, 109, 110, 665. 

U'ral Mountains, 11, 198. 

Usury, 98-100. 

Utrecht (u'trSkt), Peace of, 187, 
189, 260, 654; Union of, 145, 
368. 

Valmy (val-me'), battle of, 399. 

Vatican Council, the, 667. 

Vauban (vo-bajsr'), 183, 184. 


Vendee (vaN-da'), La, 320. 

Venetia, 356, 357, 401, 404, 412, 
413, 741. 

Venezuela, 573, 583, 708, 808. 

Venice, republic of, 100, 151, 194, 
324, 337, 338, 339, 383. 

Venizelos (va-ne-za'los), Eleu- 
therios, 523, 738, 739. 

Verdun (v&xIun'), 150, 185, 725, 
727, 733. 

Versailles (v€r-sa/y), palace of, 
181, 182, 297, 299, 301, 303, 
304, 309, 416, 689, 763. 

Versailles, Treaty of (1783), 269, 
270; Treaty of (1919), 768-772. 

Victor Emmanuel II, king of Italy, 
384, 398, 399, 401, 403, 404, 524. 

Victoria, queen of England, 426 
and note 1, 432, 450, 490, 552, 
705. 

Vienna, 206, 207, 324, 337, 343, 
381, 382. 

Vienna, Congress of, 352-358. 

Vikings. See Northmen. 

Villafranca, armistice of, 401. 

Virginia, settlement of, 235-237; 
one of the Thirteen Colonies, 
247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253. 

Virgin Islands, 481, 582, 820. 

Vittorio Veneto, battle of, 760. 

Vla-di-vos-tok', 547, 548. 

Voltaire (vol-tar'), 289, 290, 291, 
292, 293, 299, 331, 687, 804. 

Wagner (vag'ner), Richard, 679. 

Wagram (va'gram), battle of, 343. 

Wales, 102, 420, 667. 

Wallachia (wo-la'kl-i), 526. 

Wallachs (wol'aks), the, 517. 

Walloons, the, 207, 372, 476. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 223, 336, 422. 

Warfare, medieval, 79, 85; mod¬ 
ern, 714, 801-803; attitude of 
Christianity toward, 803, 804; 
abolition of, 805, 806, 816, 817. 

War of Liberation, Prussian, 346, 
361, 407. 

War of 1812-1814, the, 585, 586, 
628. 


JAN 271949 




Index and Pronouncing Vocabulary 


Warsaw, 216, 350, 375. 

Wartburg (vart'boorK), Festival, 
the, 360. 

Washington, George, 267, 271, 630. 

Waterloo, battle, of, 347, 348. 

Watt, James, 598, 599. 

Weaving, improvements in, 595, 
598. 

Weihaiwei (wa'-hi-wa/), 557, note 
1, 809. 

Weimar (vi'mar) Assembly, the, 
783, 784. 

Wellington, Duke of, 342, 347, 
348, 352, 424, 427, 693. 

Wesley, John, 283, 655. 

West India Company, Dutch, 230, 
245. 

West-pha'li-a, Peace of, 149, 150, 
180, 185, 195, 203, 353, 355. 

Whig Party, the, origin of, 170; in 
the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries, 221, 222, 224, 422, 
423, 424. See also Liberal Party. 

Whitney, Eli, 598, 599. 

White Russia, 785. 

Wilberforce, William, 655. 

Wilhelmina, Queen, 478. 

Willard, Frances E., 658. 

William I, king of Prussia and 
German emperor, 409, 410, 413, 
414, 416, 488, 490, 690; II, 491, 
702, 705, 708, 709, 710, 718, 723, 
725, 727, 757, 7.0, 771. 

William III, king of England, 171 
and note 1, 172, 173, 185 and 
note 1, 186, 187, 221, 259, 438; 
IV, 424 and note 1. 

William, Prince of Orange. See 
William III. 

William the Conqueror, 75, 102. 

William the Silent, 145, 146, 185. 

Williams, Roger, 248, 666. 


8 59 

Wilson, Woodrow, 727, 744, 745, 
746, 748, 753, 764, 772, 808, 809. 

Windischgratz (vln'dlsh-grSts), 
Prince, 381. 

Wireless telegraphy and telephony, 
613. 

Witchcraft delusion in the Thirteen 
Colonies, 247. 

Wolfe, James, 262. 

Women, emancipation of, 660-662. 

Workshops, national, in France, 
645. 

World congresses, 653, 664. 

“ World Court,” the, 815, 816. 

World War, the, origin of, 721- 
729; course of, 729-761; casual¬ 
ties in, 795, 796; money, cost of, 
797, 798; how financed, 798. 

Wren, Sir Christopher, 177, 693. 

Wright, Orville and Wilbur, 610. 

Writing, 1, 2, 14, 21, 31, 46. 

Wiirtemberg (vur't&m-bSrK) , 339, 
357, 361. 

X-rays, the, 673. 

“Young Italy,” 396, 397, 402. 

Young Men’s Christian Associa¬ 
tion, the, 659. 

Young Turks, the, 529, 530, 712, 
777. 

Ypres (e'pr’), battles of, 731. 

Yser River, 731. 

Zambesi River, 537. 

Zemstvos (zSmst'fos), Russian, 508. 

Zeppelin (ts8p-e-len'), Count, 610. 

Zollverein (tsol'fer-In), the, 408, 
411. 

Zoroaster (zo-ro-as'ter), 22. 

Zwingli (Ger. pron. tsvlng'le), 138, 
139. 














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